


Episode IX: Our Last Hope

by dancingpenguin57



Series: Our Last Hope [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Canon Compliant, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Force Bond, Post-TLJ, Pretty quick burn because I have no self control, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, You’re not alone / Neither are you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2019-03-01 13:46:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 17
Words: 29,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13296147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancingpenguin57/pseuds/dancingpenguin57
Summary: For six years the First Order has kept the galaxy under its heel. The Order is ruthless, relentless, its reach now extending beyond that of even the Empire at its height. The Resistance is gone - extinguished during the Battle of Crait.How can hope ever spark again?





	1. Landscapes

Have you ever thought about space? Truly sat down and tried to conceive of it? Plenty of wise creatures have tried to wrap their minds around the immensity of the vastness of that void, the frightening concept of so much _nothing_ … and plenty of them have gone a little bit mad from it.

There’s only one simple truth: the void is a lie. Even the blackest patch of sky has an invisible luminosity, if you know what you’re looking for. Frenetic vibrations of energy, seemingly random, but there are those who are able to make out the patterns.

And then there are the whispers. Had they always been there? Sometimes soft, so soft that you can scarcely imagine it. Sometimes violent tides that threaten to tear apart the fragile threads they travel along. They wax and wane, but they never cease, and the void has no choice but to flex and stretch to accommodate them.

Leia couldn’t hear the whispers. That part didn’t belong to her. But the Force flowed through her all the same. She felt the vibrations moving through the endless expanse of space, even here, underground in her bunker.

She ended her meditation and returned her attention to the long list of numbers in front of her. This was a different sort of code, and one that she was far less equipped to decrypt. Her fingers began to dial out a number on her holopad before she had even registered her intent to make the call.

He answered her immediately, as he always did. The miniature hologram looked up at her deferentially. She was surprised to see him dressed casually, in light of the circumstances.

“General Organa.”

She was too exhausted for the niceties. “I don’t understand the message here, Poe. You’re going to have to give it to me straight.”

“What I’ve sent you is all of the intel we have about the situation on Coruscant. To put it lightly: it’s not good. The planet is too big; the city has too many eyes. Back in your day that might have made it a good target — your guys were always able to hide in plain sight. But things are different now. Riskier.”

“Great risk often breeds great reward. The wretchedness of the capital is exactly why having one of our people there is important. We could increase our rate of gathering intel exponentially.”

He hesitated, just for a moment. “I think it would be safest if we were to rein in our ambitions, General. For now, at least. We don’t want to get cocky.”

Leia found herself feeling equal parts pride and sadness. Poe had proven himself the great leader she had always known him capable of being, but she missed the wisecracking flyboy who had never been afraid. Leia knew that her role as a teenage rebel had caused her to grow up faster than she would have liked, but she took that in stride in hope that others wouldn’t have to do the same. And yet here she was forty years later, fighting that same fight, and dragging others with her.

She made herself smile at him. “I agree. I leave the details to you, Admiral.”

“Thank you, Leia. Say hi to Chewie.”

Leia stood and stretched, wincing when she heard her back crack. Six years confined to this bunker had left her feeling the weight of her age. She spent far too much time hunched over her desk, but if she didn’t do it someone else would have to.

She was the hub of what remained of the Resistance. All of their communications and all of their intel flowed through this bunker. After Crait the dregs of the Resistance were deposited in groups of three onto the most remote planets they could find. Leia’s was the most remote of all. This planet didn’t even have a name; at least not one she knew. Her mother Breha had built this bunker back before the rise of the Empire, when she had become concerned about her husband’s increasing involvement in the Clone Wars. Anyone who knew of its existence had been on Alderaan when — _no_ , she told herself, _not now. The Resistance. You were thinking about the Resistance numbers_. Leia was the only one who knew the locations of every base. It was only fair that she be the one put at greatest risk.

She walked through the bunker towards the kitchen, one hand massaging her stiff shoulder. Chewbacca was cooking — or, rather, he was attempting to. A porg sat on his shoulder, chewing mindlessly on a lock of the Wookiee’s thick fur. Another was sitting on the ladle being used to stir their dinner, constantly threatening to overbalance and tumble down into the pot. The Wookiee looked exasperated, but utterly resigned to his fate.

R2-D2 was there too, the most sensible of the bunch. One of its many drill accessories had been repurposed as a vegetable cutter. Leia wondered what the droid thought, after having seen so much battle and excitement over its long life, to be now relegated to simple domestic tasks such as this.

The cosy scene began to fall apart when Chewbacca decided he had done enough stirring and balanced his ladle against the side of the pot. That was enough to finally cause the porg to lose his balance, and he came dangerously close to contaminating their dinner. Artoo reached out a mechanical pincer to catch him just in time, but it was enough to cause both porgs to begin squawking and flapping ridiculously. Chewie roared in consternation, reaching out for them, but they were in such a state that they eluded his grasp. Leia simply watched them, her expression unchanging.

Leia was no stranger to heartache, but she had hope. She had lost it once, momentarily, but the Force itself had reached out and brought her brother to her to restore it. How could she not believe? It was this certainty that helped her to look past all the many, many things that she had lost to appreciate the precious things that she had kept. She watched the scene in the kitchen rapidly escalate to complete chaos and thought of how she would gladly give her life a hundred times over for these dear friends of hers. Even for the droid. Maybe _especially_ for the droid.

“Chewie,” she interrupted. “CHEWIE.”

The scene froze as he turned to look at her. She chuckled.

“I’m going to head up — no, no, don’t worry, I’m not going out. I just want to look for a while.”

He warbled his assent.

She climbed the ladder with more difficulty than she would ever admit to herself. One hundred and fifty-seven rungs. As she heaved herself up the very last one she found the small landing platform, and above that a tiny slit of a window, less than the size of her two palms together. This was her only portal to the rest of the galaxy, and she wouldn’t let herself think about how measly it was.

Faint starlight touched down on her cheeks as she looked up into that vast expanse and opened herself once again to the steady flux of the Force. She spiralled up out of herself to join it, enjoying the fleeting freedom beyond the confines of her bunker. Higher and higher she soared, and she was no longer Princess General Leia Organa-Solo; she simply _was_.


	2. Control

Hux stood to attention and began reciting the list of systems that had been searched that week, utterly exhausted by the faraway look in Kylo Ren’s holographic eyes. This was a waste of time, and they both knew it.

If he were honest with himself he would have admitted that he had been pleasantly surprised by the amount of free rein that Ren had allowed him these last six years. Expectations were laid out, and so long as Hux endeavoured to meet them Ren did not seem to overly care for the particulars. They had not even met in person since the Battle of Crait. Hux was sent to re-establish Coruscant as the Imperial capital, while Ren spent his time building and then inhabiting his immense flagship. Hux neither knew nor cared how he filled his days.

There was only one thing they clashed on: the Resistance. Ren was utterly obsessed with them, making constant demands to pour more of their resources into hunting them down and stamping them out. Hux didn’t wholly disagree, however he found more value in focusing their efforts on controlling their ‘loyal’ subjects. The recruiting power of the Resistance would soon die out if they made the very idea of resisting an impossibility.

But Ren was unmovable on this point, and so Hux droned on with his scheduled report.

Suddenly Ren’s eyes shifted to some place above and behind Hux’s head, and the transmission was cut. Many of their conversations ended this way.

Hux’s shoulders dropped and he beckoned forward the young woman who had waited in the doorway, out of range of the camera. Commander Ozera handed him a black leather folio with a single piece of paper inside. It was a deplorably archaic way of transmitting information, but it was untraceable, and secrecy was of the utmost importance.

He read the message inside and was so pleased with it, and with her for bringing it to him, that he read it again out loud. Then he removed a silver cylinder from his pocket and zapped the paper with a burst of plasma, incinerating it. Ozera watched him with rapt fascination.

“You may speak,” he said finally, congratulating himself on the generosity of the offer.

Her voice was a breathy whisper. “We’ve done it, then. Our time has _finally_ come.”

Hux immediately regretted his kindness toward her. “No, foolish girl. Now that development is complete we must await mass manufacturing. We cannot reveal ourselves until we are equipped to ensure victory. Nothing can be left to chance.”

 

* * *

 

“Nothing can be left to chance. I can keep a change in leadership quiet for a little while, but I can’t stop the flow of shuttles for more than a day without officers being sent out here to investigate. There’s no point going ahead until we’re certain.”

Finn saw the sense of the words through his impatience. He nodded to the Captain — Hatchet, Finn called him, having intentionally forgotten his designation number — and sighed.

Before they had parted Leia had given Finn the mission of seeking out First Order soldiers that could be persuaded to their cause. For eighteen long months he had made no headway whatsoever; but just when he had begun to give up hope he began to find little pockets of weakness, and one-by-one he made contact with dissenters. They formed covert networks amongst themselves and his mini-rebellion began to snowball until he had contacts in almost a quarter of the major systems. Most of them were low-ranking soldiers like he had once been, but there were a few key players as well, and Finn made sure to keep their identities carefully hidden from each other.

Finding Hatchet had been Finn’s greatest success. The Captain was the highest ranking soldier on Naboo, which just so happened to be where the First Order sent their shuttles for maintenance. The massive gas deposits in the planet’s core provided for incredibly rapid refuelling. The turnover of shuttles and therefore of personnel was massive, which made it a tempting target for infiltration.

Taking the maintenance hangar along with the precious ships inside would be such a huge victory for the Resistance that Finn had reluctantly moved his base here from Mon Cala. The water planet had been his home for four years; the only home he had ever had, really.

He thought of the underwater city and the friends he had left there as he walked through the night from the rendezvous point back to his base. He had one more thing to do before finally turning in for the night. He took out his holopad and connected to a secure channel that was only able to transmit audio.

“You’re late,” Rey’s voice said.

“Sorry. I was meeting with Hatchet. He doesn’t think we’re ready, so… that’s not happening yet. In fact I don’t have anything new to tell you this time.”

“I’m glad you called anyway.” She sounded like she was smiling.

“How are you? And the kids?”

“We’re okay. It’s warm here right now,” she said, and he was unsurprised by her vagueness. She never told him particulars; all he knew was that the four of them were somewhere safe, alone.

“Bridget is trying to build her own saber, but we don’t have any plas— um, Finn, I have to go. Talk to you next time.”

The transmission cut off, and Finn chuckled to himself. A lot of their conversations ended that way.

Part of him still couldn’t believe that Rey was a _Jedi_ , with students of her own. In those first few days after Crait the three of them had often sat quietly together on the Falcon — him, Rey, Rose — and she told them about Luke Skywalker, and the Force, and the things that she had discovered she could do. It wasn’t for him, though. In truth he had been a little jealous, but it didn’t diminish how proud he was of her.

He was still smiling when he climbed into bed and sleep took him.


	3. Betrayal

Hux was relieved to step into the cool air-conditioned room after spending six full minutes exposed to the humidity of the jungle. He brushed down his coat unnecessarily before allowing the serving droid to lift it from his shoulders.

The doctor opened his arms as if to embrace him, but kept a respectful distance. “Welcome, General. I do hope the journey was pleasant for you?”

“Not at all,” sniffed Hux. “I haven’t had cause to travel this far from the core in some time. Though I suppose it is a necessary sacrifice, for the safety of your laboratory.”

The doctor nodded earnestly. “Indeed sir, very true indeed. I do apologise. It is, as you say, a necessity.”

He bowed reverently, sweeping a hand before him to encourage Hux to pass. Hux didn’t hesitate to move through the atrium, following another droid.

“Tell me of your progress,” Hux prompted.

The doctor’s smarmy attitude faded and his words took on an air of scientific precision as he began to detail the properties of the virus. He spoke at length of the process of the initial restoration of the ancient disease by his predecessor, of his own vision to perfect with science what nature had neglected, and of his unwavering assurance of their ultimate success. He didn’t pause in his speech as the droid continued to lead them through the compound to the production bay.

By the time he ended his diatribe Hux was getting impatient. “Yes, thank you, Dwyer. I would like to hear now of your manufacturing timeline. We must not reveal ourselves until we have sufficient supply to hold every system in our grasp.”

“The development was the lengthy part of the process, sir. My droids are swift, tireless workers, as you see before you. Forty-three days is all I need to meet your very reasonable needs.”

“Very good,” Hux admitted reluctantly. “You will inform me when your stores are at fifty percent of target. Then I will do my part, and sever us from our greatest obstacle.”

 

* * *

 

 

“We’re almost ready. Hatchet has slowly altered the Trooper roster so that all of his men are on the same shift. So far it hasn’t raised any suspicion. We could go for it now… but it’d be risky without some sort of diversion to slow the shuttle turnover. Problem is we can’t figure out _what_ we could do to cause that. We could be waiting forever for an opportunity.”

“Great risk often breeds great reward,” Poe said solemnly, before quickly adding “but take all necessary precautions!”

“So which is it then?” Finn laughed

Poe smiled, and made sure that his voice reflected it. “Do what you think is right. I trust you, Finn.”

Poe ended the call and walked towards the mess, still smiling.

The rebels (Finn, the people living here in this base, and all the others in the seven like it strewn throughout the galaxy) had become his own personal form of oxygen. Poe had always fought for democracy, and he would continue that fight with anyone who shared his vision, but without _these_ people fighting alongside him any victory would have seemed hollow. Their numbers were still small, but they had grown steadily over the years, with consistent recruits and very few losses.

He was still bitter about losing Rey and the kids. She had become his closest partner over the three years that she spent here, until one day she decided to leave it all behind. The fact that he may have played a part in her desertion (as he saw it) made it even harder to swallow.

The two of them had taken a huge, stupid risk and gone into the city for supplies. They were desperate. Food was running low and their droids were becoming too well-recognised. Of course the day they made the journey coincided with a random Trooper spot check, and they had spent the afternoon engaged in an elaborate (but fortunately one-sided) game of cat-and-mouse, complete with multiple wacky disguises. When they were safely behind the treeline and out of sight of the city they fell against each other, laughing uproariously, and Poe had acted on pure instinct and moved in to kiss her. She recoiled from him instantly, and the moment passed, and he was relieved, because it wasn’t what he truly wanted.

Poe had apologised more times than he could count, telling her that it hadn’t meant anything, that it was just the heat of the moment — and it was true. Rey wasn’t even his type. She initially seemed to take it in stride and they laughed it off together, but things between them changed after that. Rey became _weird_. He caught her staring into space multiple times a day. When he entered a room she would smile at him like always, and they’d begin talking, but after a few moments she would just get up and leave. A couple of times he was confident he overheard her talking to herself, her voice lowered conspiratorially so he couldn’t make out the words.

Two months later they had found Bridget and she decided that having three Padawans justified her becoming a full-time teacher, or something, and she took off with them.

She had promised him before leaving that he could call her anytime he needed, but the betrayal stung, so he had stubbornly maintained radio silence. He knew she was still in contact with Finn and that she was doing okay.

Poe’s mood lifted as he walked through the mess, good-naturedly slapping the backs of the men and women who _had_ stayed with him.

 

* * *

 

 

Kylo Ren stalked through his ship toward the communication center. There were very few people wandering the corridors at this hour; the second dinner seating was proceeding, and those who had attended the first had now retired to their personal quarters, as he should have. The disruption to his schedule was both unwelcome and unavoidable.

After six years he was used to Rey’s unexpected interruptions, but today’s had occurred at a most inopportune moment. He had been forced to leave his weekly meeting with Hux, and although he knew the conversation was a complete farce he felt it important to uphold the tradition; it was one of the ways he ensured that Hux remained aware of his place as Kylo Ren’s subordinate.

Not that it had been completely necessary for him to leave; after all the briefing would not have contained any information that she didn’t already know. But it was impossible for him to focus on the General _and_ on her.

He dismissed the surprised duty officer and looked around the stark room. He had expected to find a recording of Hux completing his report, but a cursory search revealed no such data. Irritated, he sat down at a terminal and opened the file which contained Hux’s communication records. There were hundreds of imprints. Most of them he recognised as his weekly conversations with Hux, with timestamps showing connections of anywhere between ten and forty minutes. But sprinkled in amongst them were records of other transmissions: some mere seconds long, others in the range of a few minutes. Kylo Ren had not been privy to _these_ conversations.

Suspicion roiled within him, a fuse leading directly to his rage. He didn’t ignite it yet. There may be an innocent explanation. Perhaps a well-meaning idiot had communicated with Hux on an administrative issue which they had thought to be below the Supreme Leader’s notice.

He clenched his fist, enjoying the creak of the leather beneath his fingers. Whatever the truth was, he would soon discover it.


	4. Identity

He forewent his morning meditation to return to the communication center. The room was staffed by a single junior guard, as he had known it would be at this hour.

Without preamble Kylo Ren reached a hand out behind him, using the Force to manipulate the control panel to close the door. At the same time his other hand snaked toward the Trooper, entering his mind without hesitation.

He whirled through mercilessly, finding mostly mundane observations about how the boy had expected life on board the Resurrection to be a little more exciting. _Is this exciting enough for you?_ Kylo Ren taunted.

Finally he found something of interest — a memory. The boy _had_ spoken with Hux. Just once, on a morning much like this when he was alone in the center.

Hux had patched through unexpectedly. The boy had stood to attention and immediately reached for his comm to alert a more senior officer of the General’s contact. Hux had reassured the boy that no such action was necessary, that in fact he had patched through to speak to him, that he had very important information for _him_. Apparently the Supreme Leader’s entire fleet was due to undergo a period of downtime to their transmission systems in order to complete necessary upgrades. This was to occur some time within the next two weeks, and none of this should be any cause for concern whatsoever, and he should disseminate this information among his peers so that whoever was on guard duty that night would not be alarmed. The boy had complied immediately; he was too simple to wonder why the General himself was calling to inform junior staff about routine maintenance.

Seconds after he released the boy’s mind the door opened behind them and four officers entered, right on time for the morning shift.

“Take him to the brig,” Kylo Ren said without looking at any of them. “High treason.”

* * *

“Try again,” Rey said encouragingly.

The young Mon Calamari looked up at her, his wide eyes troubled. “I’ve tried so many times, it’s not working! Maybe I’m just not strong enough for this…”

Rey patted the grass in front of her, prompting him to sit, and he mirrored her cross-legged position.

“When I say ‘try again’ I don’t mean ‘try the same thing over and over’. You are strong enough for this, Ka’jan — strong enough for a lot _more_ than this, actually — you just need to find the way that works, for you. Once you’ve found it you’ll realise it was there all along.”

The boy plucked aimlessly at a strand of grass, trying to take in her words but obviously still feeling broody.

“Let’s try to find it together, then?” Rey said.

She decided to lead by example and so entered her meditation without waiting for his response. She felt him follow her a few seconds later, and they spent ten minutes enjoying the cool breeze.

“Okay,” she said when they had returned, and he rose obediently.

He tried once more, and failed.

“It’s alright,” Rey said gently. “We can try again tomo—“

“ _No_ ,” Ka’jan protested. “I almost got it that time!”

He reached out his hand insistently, his face screwing with the equal forces of his concentration and his frustration, and just when she was about to tell him to call it off the staff leapt from the ground into his waiting hand. He looked over to her, beaming with pride, and she gave him a small nod of acknowledgement.

Rey stood to walk toward him, then knelt so their eyes were level.

“You used your anger to call it to you.”

“Yes,” Ka’jan said, his voice wavering with uncertainty, not understanding why she wasn’t pleased by his success. “Is that bad?”

Rey looked behind him out to the ocean, wondering how to explain to him the things that she was still trying to understand herself.

“No,” she said finally. “It’s not _bad_. To be angry is to be hu— to be _alive_. That feeling is part of you, and you can embrace it if you like. But you can’t lose yourself to it. Down that road leads a lot of pain, so no matter how powerful the dark side of the Force makes you feel in those moments, you can’t ever trust it.”

“But… if I can’t trust in the Force then what can I trust?”

She turned back to him, smiling. “Trust _yourself_ , Ka’jan. You can be angry sometimes, or sad, or frightened, but as long as you never lose sight of yourself then you’ll never get lost.”

* * *

Kylo Ren stood on the bridge of the Resurrection, overlooking his capital. It was the first time he had laid eyes on Coruscant in over a year.

He kept his anger in check as best he could, because the men and women in this room were loyal to him — he was sure of it, had ransacked their minds before letting them anywhere near him — and were therefore his greatest and only asset right now.

But there was a limit to his patience.

“What is taking so long?”

Trooper PK-3939 — Captain Piker, as he was known — responded for the group. “Sir, forgive me, we are awaiting landing codes from the capital. You understand surely, sir, that a ship as magnificently large as this requires special preparations to be made before landing.”

He understood the logic behind the words, but his gut continued to roll, disbelieving that the extensive delay was organic. Surely the Coruscant ground crew could have accommodated him by now. He was the _Supreme Leader_.

Ren’s voice was strained. “Get my shuttle ready; I will make planetfall directly, and the rest of you will follow when arrangements are complete.”

A female officer began to make contact with ground staff to inform them of the change of plan, and when Ren heard the response his blood began to boil.

“Shuttle? Uh, negative, negative, we have a reactor leak here now, give us a few———“ and then static. The transmission hadn’t been cut, it had been _jammed_.

The officer tapped at her terminal screen in confusion for a few moments before looking back and up at him, not quite meeting his gaze. “Our communications are offline, sir.”

Ren’s quick breaths were shallow and dangerously quiet. He knew now that he had made an incredible mistake by spending so much time hidden away from the galaxy on this ship. The First Order had been trained to take orders from Hux, not from him. He was nothing more than a shadow to these people. He had been an idiot to expect their loyalty.

Why else had Hux been so bold as to implement this strategy of his? It had been difficult to piece it all together — dozens of his traitorous crew had each held dozens of tiny morsels of information — but after three days of endless interrogations he had completed a rough picture of Hux’s ambition. An airborne virus that slowly took control of the minds of its victims and turned them into pliant beasts. Ironically it now seemed that Kylo Ren was the only thing standing between Hux and an entire galaxy of mindless slaves.

At length he spoke.

“Turn around. Travel away from the Core; I don’t care where. Do not engage anyone for any reason. I will be in my private quarters. Do not disturb me until I command otherwise.”

Piker spoke up again as Ren turned to leave. “Supreme Leader, what of the prisoners in the brig? There are fifty-seven of them stored at present. I believe it was your plan to ‘deal with them’ — as you put it — when we reached the capital, however no—“

“Execute them,” Ren interrupted without interrupting his stride.

“Right away, sir.”

* * *

Rey checked in on the kids one last time before retiring to her own hut.

‘Kids’ wasn’t the correct term for them, really. Elio was nineteen, Bridget a few years younger, and Ka’jan was quickly reaching the Mon Calamari equivalent of adolescence.

Rey knew that all three of them were more than capable of looking after themselves, just as she had done when she had been younger than Ka’jan. But they weren’t alone in the deserts of Jakku; they were here together on Ahch-To, and they deserved to have someone watch over them.

She felt restless as she climbed into bed, and spent a long time staring at the ceiling.

Waiting.

Nothing happened. She couldn’t remember the last time she had gone an entire day without feeling him.

She silently prayed that he was alright, and then wondered for the millionth time if hoping for his safety was the correct thing to do. Wouldn’t the galaxy be better off if ‘Kylo Ren’ were vanquished? There would still be the disgusting General Hux to deal with, but he was a much more tangible enemy for the Resistance to focus on.

After another sleepless hour passed she fell into meditation, diving deep inside herself to the flame that burned steadily at her core. It was restless, too.

Finally she felt him at her periphery. He was so faint that in another lifetime she would have thought she had imagined him, but now his presence was familiar enough to be unmistakable. The slight flicker of awareness left her as quickly as it had come. It wasn’t much. But it was enough to finally allow her to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has read and left kudos so far! Things will start moving a lot more quickly from here now that all the pieces are set up.


	5. Gamble

Teena Ozera grumbled to herself, burying her pounding head further under the pillow. It wasn’t enough to drown out the alarm filling the room.

“Stop,” she mumbled groggily, and mercifully the blaring ceased.

She had nine minutes of reprieve before it began again, somehow sounding even more shrill.

She managed to pull herself up and into the ‘fresher. Half an hour later she was sitting on her bed wrapped in a towel, staring with glazed eyes at the uniform hanging on her door, completely unsure how she would manage to get her uncooperative body into it.

Eventually she was moving through the crisp Coruscanti air to her office. She had missed breakfast, and her churning stomach wasn’t impressed, but she had had little choice in the matter.

She stood to attention before her holocamera, taking the opportunity to pinch some colour into her cheeks before the connection resolved itself.

“General Hux.”

“Commander.” Hux‘s face was neutral; for him that was almost as good as a smile. “Your update?”

Teena paused, cursing herself. She hadn’t even thought to look through the daily briefings to prepare herself. Hux had been gone for four days. She ran through her detailed reports of the first two and then fumbled her way through the weekend, when she had also been absent and had no idea what had happened.

Hux’s expression twisted into his trademark sneer. “I’m impressed, Ozera...” (Her heart lifted. Perhaps she had succeeded?) “...by your multitasking ability.” (Damn.) “It was so very good of you to keep tabs on operations in the capital while you were out gallivanting around Cantonica.”

Teena’s gaze dropped to the floor. She knew that anything she said now would only make things worse. _Happy birthday to me_ , she thought morosely.

“I had hoped that this would have been obvious to you, but it seems the little faith I had in your intelligence was doing you far too much credit.” Hux leaned closer to his camera, causing his face to enlarge menacingly before her. “The next time I leave to perform a personal errand it is _not_ a signal for you to do the same. You will remain at your post until I command otherwise. Is that clear?”

“Yes, General.”

* * *

 

Poe was slowly roused from sleep by a gentle but insistent beeping. He rolled over on his cot to look down at BB-8.

“What time is it, buddy?”

/Early. Someone needs to talk to you./

Poe scrubbed his face and ran a few fingers through his hair to make himself appear marginally human.

“Okay, patch it in.”

The face BB-8 projected was Maz Kanata’s. Poe’s heart skipped a beat. She wouldn’t risk contacting him unless it was an emergency.

Unlike the rest of them who had spent the last six years in hiding, Maz had strolled right into the heart of the First Order with her head held high. Poe still wasn’t sure how she had managed to stay alive. But she had taken over a warehouse in Canto Bight and re-opened her business there, and perhaps the First Order were simply too baffled by her actions to realise that they had the ability to stop her.

Maz didn’t acknowledge him. She was in the middle of a hurried, whispered sentence, and Poe realised that he was now part of a three-way transmission with some other participant. There was only one other person who Maz would reach out to.

Leia’s voice confirmed his suspicion. “Thank you, Maz. Go now. It’s best you don’t contact us again, for your own safety. Take care.”

Maz cut her end immediately. BB-8 replaced her image with Leia’s.

“Something you want to share with the class, General?”

Leia looked graver than he had ever seen her. “Maz had an interesting visitor this weekend. One of Hux’s officers. A very young officer, who clearly wasn’t used to the party scene, and had a bit of trouble holding her liquor…”

* * *

 

Elio raised a sceptical eyebrow. “Fire? That doesn’t seem very calming at all.”

“Not _fire_ fire, not an inferno, but just… a steady flame, warm and light. Hopeful.”

He seemed unconvinced, and Rey shrugged impatiently.

“Look, if that doesn’t work for you, choose something else. It’s different for everyone… I think…”

Rey always had a hard time ‘teaching’ Elio. The boy was only a few years younger than her, and was a _very_ eager learner. Bridget and Ka’jan could always be made happy with kind words and reassurances, but Elio wanted _answers_ , and Rey simply didn’t have them all.

She felt a flutter of energy behind her, but she ignored it, keeping her focus on her Padawan.

“Just promise me that you’ll try it at meditation this evening. If it helps, then great. If not, then you’ll try something else — no, _not_ that. Not yet!”

“Okay, I’ll try finding your ‘hope’ fire,” he relented, shaking his head to whip the hair out of his eyes. Rey wondered if he were too old now for her to offer him a haircut.

“Thanks. Go and find the others, will you? Then we can all get dinner started together.”

Rey smiled as she watched Elio crest the hill. Then she waited.

Ben spoke. “You should let him do it his way.”

She kept her eyes stubbornly trained on the hill and the sky behind it. She was annoyed that he had gone four days without speaking to her; illogically, because she knew that he had as little control as she did over when and how long they could communicate.

“As he is _my_ student, I think I will let him do it the way I see fit,” she replied, finally.

“He’s obedient enough to try it your way, but he still thinks you’re wrong. All the explanations in the world won’t change that. He needs to test his theory and fail, to fully understand the wisdom in what you’ve said.”

“What is the point in me being a teacher to these kids if I don’t… you know… _teach_?”

“No one ever taught you about this ‘fire’ of yours, but you found it.” There was something sly in his voice that irritated Rey, but she couldn’t figure out if he was mocking her or not.

There was a long pause. Over the years they had become acquainted with each other’s silences after they had exhausted their conversation — sometimes the connection just didn’t want to break — but this was different. She sensed a purpose in him today. He was waiting for something.

His words came slowly, each one painfully deliberate. “I need your help.”

“Okay,” she heard herself say.

He didn’t acknowledge her response, continuing in the same deliberate tone to talk about Hux, and interrogations, and laboratories. Rey had difficulty following him. She was completely distracted by the strange echo-like quality that his words left in her mind, and something inside her ached as she realised that he had planned this speech meticulously before coming to her.

“ _Enough_ , Ben,” she cut him off. “I’ll help you.”

“But you haven’t eve—“

“I don’t need to. All I need is a couple of days to figure out what to do with my Padawans.”


	6. Faith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A new alliance forms while an old one rekindles.

Rey needn’t have worried about how she would explain her sudden decision to send her Padawans back to the Resistance. Finn had contacted her soon after her conversation with Ben to update her on the virus that the First Order was developing.

“So that’s what it is,” she breathed. Then, realising her mistake: “I mean — I knew something was going on. A disturbance in the Force, you know?”

“Right, Jedi stuff.” Finn sounded satisfied with the explanation. “I know that what you’re doing is important, Rey, but we need you back here. It’s all hands on deck now. We need every single one of us to work together if we’re ever going to be able to make a difference here. The time for hiding and growing is over.”

She nodded to herself, moved by his solid determination. “I’ll send Elio to you — he’ll be able to help if there’s a battle at the hangar. Bridget and Ka’jan can go back to Poe’s base. And I…”

Finn waited.

“I… think I know a way to help. But I need some time.”

“Alright, Rey. I have faith in you. I’ll see you soon.” To his credit there was nothing but affection and trust in his voice.

She smiled as she ended the transmission, her heart feeling full and warm in spite of everything.

* * *

 

Rey picked her way through the ruins of what was once Maz Kanata’s castle, wondering why he had chosen this place. The forests of Takodana were breathtaking, but her last visit here hadn’t exactly been pleasant. It was here that she had first felt the Force. It didn’t flow into her, through her, the way it does now. It had hit her like lightning. And this was where she had first seen _him_. She had been so afraid of all of it. And now… she wasn’t sure what she felt about it now. Now it simply _is_. He simply is.

She and Ben were connected. She couldn’t explain it, had never even tried to explain it, but this is where it all began. After the Battle of Crait she had tried to block him from her mind, but it was like trying to use a thin piece of cloth to block the sun from her eyes. She couldn’t shake him. Sometimes it would be merely a fleeting sense of him as she went about her morning chores; sometimes he would sit beside her for hours as she meditated. Eventually they started talking again.

There were unwritten rules to their conversations. Lines that they never crossed. He didn’t ever ask her where the rebels were, though she felt the question burning constantly at the edge of his thoughts. She didn’t acknowledge his role as Supreme Leader, and everything that it entailed. Neither of them ever mentioned Luke, or That Day.

In all those long years she had never once looked at him. She had seen too much in those surprisingly soft brown eyes; knew how easy it was to get lost in them. She couldn’t afford that. Not after everything that had happened.

But they were both here now, so she had no choice but to look.

She felt very small.

“Hi,” she said, and immediately regretted it. _Hi?_

“You came.” His awed tone sent all of her blood rushing to her feet, as if it were trying to escape her body.

“I said I would.” She adjusted her arm wrap in a futile effort to keep her hands from trembling. Why was she so affected by his presence? She had heard him inside her mind every day for six years and had never lost her composure; but having him _here_ , in front of her, solid and clear… it was different. Ben looked at her as if he had never seen another living person before.

Rey knew that he watched her every day, keeping his eyes on her just as deliberately as she kept hers away from him. Did he always look at her like _this_? She silenced the part of her that knew the answer.

He reached out for her mind, almost politely, as if she had a door and he was knocking on it gently. She didn’t know how to react to that, so she compromised by opening it just a little. The periphery of her thoughts met the periphery of his. It was like walking directly into a hurricane.

She shook her head to clear it. “Look, we’re here to talk about Hux, right? Tell me about the virus.”

She felt his surprise, though he didn’t show it on his face. “Apparently I can’t tell you anything you don’t already know.”

“Then _why_ are we here, Ben?”

“Because I failed.” His voice carried that same deliberate tone that he had used when he told her he needed her, and she knew that he had chosen these words long before he spoke them out loud. “Hux knew exactly what resources I had at my disposal, and he made certain that all of them would be completely useless when he cut me off.”

Rey frowned, not understanding. “Your resources aren’t useless; they’re everything that we haven’t had for _six years_. We survived, and so will you. I don’t have anything to offer you; all I have is a lightsaber.”

Ben shifted on his feet, his first outward sign of discomfort. “I have thirteen thousand, nine hundred and fifty-seven Troopers on my Destroyer. And two hundred officers; half of them with questionable loyalties. That’s all. Some TIE fighters, but limited ground artillery — Hux’s fleet carries all of the walkers, because he was the one who lead any necessary ground invasions.” His deliberate tone was gone now and he practically trembled with anger. “My communication systems might take weeks to repair. Most importantly, I have no ships to transport my men to wherever it is they will need to go.”

“The Resistance has no ships, either,” Rey replied lamely, no quite knowing what else to say.

“No,” he said quietly, “but you’re working on it. Right now FN-2187 is manoeuvring _my_ men on Naboo to take control of the maintenance sector. Then you’ll have enough ships to transport the entire Resistance a hundred times over.”

She gaped at him. “How did y—“ but of course she knew the answer. He learned it from _her_. After she thought she had been so careful. After she had so stupidly trusted him not to cross their lines.

“ _Your_ lines, Rey.” He frowned. “And I didn’t cross them. _You_ did, though you didn’t mean to. You practically screamed it all to me, every single detail, every single night.”

He turned away from her suddenly, dark cape whipping behind him, heading with purpose toward the forest. Rey supposed that that meant they were leaving. She didn’t understand, and part of her was afraid, so she reached out to her hope-fire and held it close.

Ben turned back looked at her, a glint of humour in his eye, as if he knew something she didn’t.

Against her better judgment she followed him back to his shuttle.

* * *

 

Hux dismissed Ozera so he could read the message alone. She no longer deserved to be a part of his victory after her little weekend rebellion.

He turned the piece of paper over in his hands a few times before incinerating it. Dwyer had a good point. Their small-scale tests had been wonderfully successful, but even the most potent airborne pathogen would take time to encompass an entire planet.

He took a recording chip from his pocket and spoke a single word into it, before handing it off to a droid. “Take this to the doctor.”

* * *

 

“Finn.” Rey said firmly, interrupting a long silence.

Ben lifted his head from the pilot’s seat and blinked at her sleepily.

“What?”

“His name is Finn,” she said. “You called him a number. But his name is Finn.”

Ben was completely unmoved. “Very well.” He turned away from her to look out the viewport.

She boiled for a moment before unleashing. “And all thirteen thousand of your men, they have names too. Names that their parents gave them, or that they’ve given themselves… it doesn’t matter, they’re _people_ , not garbage!”

“I know,” he said.

“And _another thing_ — wait, what?”

“Most of them give each other names. Wordplay on their designation numbers, or in honour of some deed they’ve accomplished, or stupid jokes. But as you say, there are thirteen thousand of them — actually, there are thirteen thousand, nine hundred and fifty-seven — and I can’t possibly remember them all.”

She stewed, resenting him for his reasonable response.

After a few minutes of silence he continued, so quietly she almost missed it: “I gave myself the name Kylo Ren, but you don’t use it. I’ve never complained.”

This surprised her. “Is that what you want me to call you? Instead of Ben?”

He shook his head lightly. “It doesn’t matter. They mean the same thing.”

“No,” she replied stubbornly. “Kylo Ren was Snoke’s creation. But _Ben Solo_ kill--”

“I killed Snoke. And Han Solo. And hundreds of others. _I_ did that. I’m a murderous snake; a monster. That’s what you’re sitting next to. But I’ll take you back to Takodana if you want.” His voice was calm and steady, but his entire body had tensed. He gripped his armrests so tightly that Rey was sure his hands were bone white under his gloves.

Suddenly there was a lump in her throat, and her breath choked loudly around it.

Ben heaved a great sigh that seemed to come from the depths of his soul and leaned forward to engage the navicomputer.

“No!” Rey reached out to stop him, hesitating before she made contact. Her hand hovered over his, and they both froze.

“I said I would come.”

Slowly they both eased back into their seats. The rest of the long trip passed in silence. Eventually Rey relaxed enough to fall into a light sleep, startling only when the navi beeped to signal their imminent departure from hyperspace.

Ben appeared to be watching the controls in front of him, but his body was coiled again, and Rey knew that he was focused on her.

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly, feeling a bizarre sense of urgency. “I crossed the line again. Intentionally, this time.”

He turned to face her. “ _Your_ line. I’ve never hidden any of this from you.”

“I like calling you Ben,” Rey said, because she didn’t know what else there was to say. “Is that okay?”

He nodded.

* * *

 

Finn and Elio reached out simultaneously to grasp each other’s hands firmly. Finn had already decided to like the boy. After all, Rey had ‘raised’ him for the last four and a half years.

“Nice to meet you, bud. Rey’s told me so— well, she’s told me you…” Finn trailed off, realising that he didn’t know much at all about Rey’s eldest Padawan, apart from the fact that he existed.

“I’m guessing she’s told you… that I exist? And not much else.” Elio smirked, flipping his head to swipe his sandy hair out of his eyes. Finn wondered if it would be weird of him to offer the boy a haircut.

“Yeah. She’s a little secretive,”

“She actually has told me about you,” Elio admitted. “Says you were the first friend she’d ever had.”

“Yeah, same here,” Finn replied automatically. But then he thought for a moment. “Actually, not really. The first time we met she whacked me with her staff and accused me of being a thief.” He couldn’t help but smile at the memory.

Elio grinned. “Yeah, that sounds like her.”

* * *

 

They exited hyperspace, just as he had planned, at a point that afforded them a full view of his Destroyer. He watched with satisfaction as she took in its size, her eyes widening. She had been awed by the Supremacy, but that had belonged to Snoke. The Resurrection was _his_ , his own; he had earned every inch of it.

A single guard greeted them as they disembarked in his private hangar. Supreme Leader Kylo Ren didn’t have the taste for pomp and pageantry that Hux displayed, and Snoke before him. He didn’t need the entire ship to celebrate his comings and goings; though he now realised that his lack of ostentation had cost him the galaxy.

The Trooper stood to full attention. His armoured hand clenched and unclenched; a nervous tic. “Supreme Leader, in your absence we have been running diagnostics on all communication channels as you commanded. We haven’t found a solution. I have no further news for you”

“Acknowledged, Piker. You’re dismissed.” Ren glanced pointedly at Rey as he spoke the name, and she glared back with beautiful defiance, but he sensed no true malice in it.

They were alone again, and he lead her to his private quarters in a silence that was almost comfortable. But when the door had hissed shut behind them he stepped back from her, unsure how to proceed. A small secret part of him was terrified that even now she would simply turn and leave. Again.

Rey’s scavenger instincts took over and she turned in a circle, examining the room with open curiosity. He was struck by how very strange it was that her presence here was so familiar to him, yet she was seeing it all for the first time.

Her roving eyes paused when they landed on his desk. It was bare except for a single calligraphy pen, looking as though its placement was very deliberate. And it had been, _before_ , when he had thought she wouldn’t come. He cursed himself for his carelessness, because of course she would be drawn to it. The wooden shaft was incongruous with the chromasteel that filled the rest of the room.

Completely unabashed, she moved toward the desk and picked up the pen as if it were the most natural thing in the world for her to do. She turned it over in her hands, examining from every angle. “You write with this?”

He couldn’t help himself. “No, I weave baskets with it.”

She looked at him over her shoulder, eyebrows raised to express exactly how unamused she was by the reminder, but he saw her mouth flicker into a grin as she turned her face away from him again.

His stomach flickered, too.

Apparently satisfied with her inspection she replaced the pen, her movements still casual. She began to withdraw, but then paused to make a delicate adjustment so that it was once again parallel with the edge of the desk, just as she had found it.

Ben couldn’t take his eyes from her. That pen was his, it belonged to him, he had chosen it. And _she liked it_. He felt the sudden, desperate need to give her something. Everything.

She turned back toward him, giving the room one last scan. “When do we eat?”

He swallowed thickly. “Whenever you like. You’re my guest.”


	7. Resurrection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey and Ben ignore their problems for a while. Finn wins a victory for the Resistance.

She watched him sleep.

He had offered her her own room, not far from his, and almost as big. She explained that she wouldn’t sleep very soundly in an unfamiliar room on a Mega Star Destroyer surrounded by thousands of Stormtroopers.

It was a valid excuse, but it wasn’t quite true.

She had wanted to look at him. For six years she had avoided the temptation, and for good reason, because now that she was here and looking at him she was afraid she wouldn’t have the strength to ever leave. It had almost broken her the first time.

She nudged against his mind, very lightly to avoid waking him. It wasn’t enough for her to fully visualise his dream, but she saw fleeting impressions. Luke, Han, Leia, Snoke… and herself. She was surprised to find that he was not in turmoil at the sight of his many tormentors; rather he took this time of rest to examine them all in turn. She wondered if he would ever be this at peace when he was awake.

She thought of what he had said on Takodana when he admitted that he heard her at night. Did he see her dreams, too?

She swallowed painfully around the lump in her throat.

* * *

 

The next morning he gave her a tour, making a point to mention that they were skipping training to do so. They encountered few others as they moved through the massive city of a ship, but those that they did meet stood at attention. The Troopers all seemed unperturbed by her presence, but a few of the officers stared with thinly-veiled curiosity, though none looked surprised.

“Who do they think I am?” she wondered aloud.

“I’ve told them that your name is Rey, and that you have full clearance,” he replied simply.

“Rey… and? What else?” How could he possibly have introduced her to these people? As his apprentice? His conspirator? His friend?

“Nothing.”

“What?”

“I’ve told them nothing else. You can tell them whatever you wish.”

She thought for a moment.

“I’m fine with just Rey,” she decided.

* * *

 

Elio’s arrival was the spark that they had been waiting for.

The boy was crazy skilled. He could _read minds_. Finn wondered if Rey had this talent too, and decided not to disclose it to him.

Elio looked into the mind of every Trooper and found dozens that were sympathetic to their cause, that Finn and Hatchet had overlooked. They didn’t approach any of them yet, but with this new intel Hatchet was able to further restructure the Trooper roster to swing the odds wildly in their favour.

They asked the boy once if he was just as skilled with a lightsaber. Elio grinned.

Finn painstakingly encoded the new Troopers’ designation numbers and transmitted them through to Leia. It had been a long time since she had asked him for an update — he assumed that she was getting information via Poe — but he felt compelled to keep her in the loop. Finn had changed a lot since he left the First Order, but he couldn’t completely escape his past as a soldier, and he wanted the General to be proud of the progress he was making.

* * *

 

Time was strictly regimented on the Resurrection. Mornings were devoted to training and drills, and Rey was no exception. She and Ben alternated between sparring and studying. He had a vast library of holochrons and she began to devour them one by one, completely entranced by the images of ancient Jedi that had walked this path before either of them. Ben had already seen these, but he seemed content to watch her watch them, occasionally interjecting with his own thoughts and experiences.

When she reciprocated by sharing the Jedi texts he shocked her by going to his desk and taking a pile of paper from one of the drawers. Here he had written careful notes of all the times she had read aloud when the Force kept him beside her while she studied. He spent days painstakingly comparing his notes to the originals, filling in gaps and making corrections.

She wasn’t sure how he had spent his mornings before she arrived.

Every few hours a tray of food would be delivered to them, piled high with fruits and cheeses and sweets that she had never seen. Ben acted as though he had always had meals delivered this way, but she watched the serving droids dither a little as they decided where to place the platters, and she knew that he had implemented this for her benefit. She tried to convince herself that she was unmoved by this obvious attempt to impress her, or offended by the constant reminders of her hungry childhood; but a more honest part of her recognised that he was simply trying to please her, and revelled in the attention.

Over time the food selection morphed to reflect her tastes; the library was rearranged to provide better access to the topics that most interested her; the Troopers made a point to introduce themselves to her by name and make small talk with her. A hundred little things began to change about daily life on the Resurrection, and all for the purpose of suiting her preferences.

Would this have been his standard treatment of her, if she had left with him that day? Or was she a novelty that would soon lose its appeal? That little honest, treacherous part of her knew the answer, and she stamped it down as hard as she could so that she would never feel the sting of regret.

His afternoons were spent in the communication block, where a small group of trained and trusted personnel attempted to locate Hux’s fleet. Ben insisted on overseeing all of these efforts personally. The technical babble wasn’t interesting to her — she knew hardware, not software — so she took to wandering the ship. On the third day she came across the weapons maintenance center and shyly approached the stern-looking woman guarding it. It took her a long time to figure out how to state her business there, but the woman seemed to expect her and Rey was ushered inside and given free rein of the place. An hour later a platter of food appeared, right on schedule, and Rey wondered if the droids were following her or if they had been told she would be here.

Ben would always come to find her and guide her back to his quarters before their scheduled dinner time. He filled her in on all the details of the day’s searches, and expected her to give an opinion, but she never really had anything useful to say.

On the sixth day she left the weapons center early and went back to him, not entirely sure why, but feeling oddly restless. His lips lifted in a small smile when he saw her and he told his people to continue without him. They took the elevator to the observation deck and sat there for a long time in comfortable silence. It seemed like a significant event at the time, but they returned to routine the next day, and it was never mentioned again.

On the eighth day Rey finally allowed herself to realise that her presence here wasn’t at all necessary. He had told her that he needed her help, but all he had asked for was her attention while he told her of the updates that were being made and new treacheries that were being discovered. She could have done this from Ahch-To.

She slept in his bed every night, long after her initial excuse had lost all traction. On the twelfth night she asked him, as they lay quietly in the dark watching the ceiling, why he had brought her here.

He was silent for so long that she thought he may have fallen asleep. When he finally spoke it was with slow caution, as though he thought that any noise would shatter the artificial night around them.

“Do you not like it?” He didn’t turn to face her, and she was grateful because she hadn’t had enough time to decide what would happen if he did.

“I… don’t understand, that’s all. You said you needed me.”

“I do.”

Without looking she reached out across the wide expanse of the sheet between them until the edge of her little finger rested against his. It was the first time they had touched since That Day. His skin was impossibly warm, and her own ignited in response. She was aware of both of their hearts racing.

The air was so thick with purpose that Rey laughed lightly, because how could she ever manage to sleep now? Ben dove into her mind, almost reflexively, searching her immediate feelings, and she was surprised to feel in his echo that her laughter scared him. She pushed her intent toward him, reassuring him that there was no mockery behind it; only bewildered acceptance.

He relaxed, allowing a very short, low laugh of his own. His hand moved to cover hers, his thumb stroking light circles onto her wrist, and suddenly she was asleep.

* * *

 

She woke after him, as always, and was surprised to find him still inside her mind. Her hand was empty — he wasn’t on the bed with her anymore. She knew that by this time of morning he had already showered and eaten, and now was meditating in the adjoining sitting room, waiting for her to catch up to him.

She moved across the bedroom to the ensuite, stretching sleepily. Her hands went to the hem of her shirt and she moved to lift it before pausing, realising that he was still with her.

_Um. Can I have a few minutes?_

She felt no response from him except the steady thrum of his meditative focus.

She nudged him, and then again, and finally he recognised her and withdrew, leaving her alone to continue with her morning routine.

When she was done she pressed a wall panel to reveal the small laundry compartment and the droid that inhabited it. She paused with her nightclothes in her hands, blinking down at Ben’s neatly folded pile for a moment before placing her own scrunched-up ball on top. This simple thing occurred every morning, but today it made her blush.

When she moved into the sitting room he refused to meet her gaze.

“I didn’t know you were awake,” he said quickly. “I wasn’t tr— you help me meditate, that’s all.”

Rey remembered all the times she had felt him beside her on Ahch-To, and knew that he had a good point.

“It’s alright,” she reassured him, “you help me too.” Then something occurred to her. “Do you do that every morning? Use me to meditate, I mean.”

“I am not _using_ you,” he defended.

“You didn’t answer the question.”

“Your mind is open when you’re asleep. I hear you — I told you this already on Takodana. Usually you return to normal when you wake up… well… ‘normal’ for us.” He frowned, looking contemplative.

Rey recognised the look, and gave him a few moments to mull things over while she moved to sit opposite him, mirroring his cross-legged posture. When his expression shifted again she spoke up.

“So why was it different today? Why am I suddenly ‘abnormal’, as you would put it? Does it mean something?”

When they had first begun spending these mornings together she had been tentative about interrupting him, but now she knew that he liked her asking questions. In later days she found his face would lift with his now-trademark barely-there smile before answering, and Rey wouldn’t be able to help smiling back at him.

He didn’t smile this time. His eyes bored into her and she found herself noticing his lashes for the first time, and the way they fluttered every time he blinked.

“I don’t know,” he said at length. Then, more quietly, “but I hope it does.”

She reached out to his mind to search for his meaning the way he had searched for hers the night before. He laid himself out for her, almost as if he were daring her to find it.

* * *

 

“Sir, I have an update for you.”

Hux sighed, placing down his Tarine tea with malicious precision before turning to the intruder. “I hope for your sake that this news will be pleasing to me.”

“We have intercepted some communications from the Resurrection,” the officer reported, and his tone indicated that he did in fact think that his General would be pleased by this.

Hux’s vision clouded with fury. “The Resurrection doesn’t _have_ any communications.”

“No,” the officer squeaked. He cleared his throat nervously before continuing. “The ship is still offline, sir. But there is now an independent transmitter on board. We have traced communications to Naboo.”

“And who or what is it communicating with on Naboo?”

* * *

 

Rey received a call from Finn every three days. The conversations were short and their content was impersonal, but Rey’s voice would lighten with an easy affection that Ben never heard when she spoke to him.

They spoke in some sort of primitive ‘code’, and when Rey looked up at Ben afterwards and politely ‘translated’ for his benefit he had difficulty keeping a straight face. Still he took note of the schedule of the calls and made a point to always be with her when they happened, because for an hour or so afterwards she would smile to herself, and he liked that.

On the sixteenth day her comm beeped while they were meditating. Her fingers fumbled slightly as she reached for it, revealing that she wasn’t accustomed to unscheduled calls and expected to receive bad news.

It wasn’t bad news at all. They had won the ships. Finn delivered the noise in a booming, excited voice that filled the air between them.

Rey gladly returned the enthusiasm. “Finn, this is _perfect_ , I can barely believe it! I’m so proud of all of you!” She sobered momentarily to ask “is Elio alright? And everyone? Were there any casualties?”

“Elio’s fine, better than fine, you should’ve seen him! A few of the Troopers are a little banged up, but they’ll do alright. We have a new problem now, though — we don’t have nearly enough crew to staff all of these!” Finn’s laugh indicated that he didn’t think this to be much of a problem at all.

“Well —“ she flicked her eyes to Ben for a moment, “well, we’ll figure that out. Now that we’re in a stronger position I’m sure more people will reveal themselves and join the cause.”

Finn was still laughing. “You’re damn right they will! You’d better get on over here, Rey. You’d love this place! Elio agrees.” On cue a young male voice called out in the background.

Rey swallowed. “Maybe. Soon. I’ll call you, Finn.”

She ended the transmission, and then spent a few seconds studying her commlink, testing out a few buttons. Slowly she put it back in her pocket, studiously ignoring his gaze. At least she had enough shame to blush.

“Why didn’t you tell him about me?”

Rey avoided his eyes, staring down at her hands sullenly. “He wouldn’t understand. Not yet.”

Ben clenched his fists, deciding to give her a chance to correct her course. “Won’t understand that I’m as eager to destroy Hux as the rest of you? Won’t understand that I am giving my forces to the cause, thereby leaving myself unprotected when you finally decide you’re done with me? Or won’t understand the reason that you’re here with me and not there with them?”

Rey sighed. “All of it, Ben. How could he understand — how could anyone — when _I_ don’t?” She finally looked up at him, and her eyes were pleading. “I don’t understand why you want to help the Resistance, or what your plan is after this, or why you brought me here, or why you look at me like—“

He stood up to turn from her and ripped his fingers through his hair, growling in frustration as he realised that this girl who had such a hold on him was a _complete moron_.

Rey felt the insult, but not the sentiment behind it, and she stood to answer him with a growl of her own. Ben couldn’t bring himself to hate her, but he hated himself more than ever, because even now she was perfect.

As he whipped back around to _finally_ settle this thing between them the door opened and an officer marched in. He had never seen this woman before, but right now he was convinced that she was the most wretched being in the galaxy, and he refused to even acknowledge her.

She wasn’t to be deterred, however. She stood to attention before him and spoke in a loud, clear voice.

“Supreme Leader, I beg your pardon, but I have been sent to give you an urgent update.”

“Give it,” Ben snapped, still looking at Rey.

The officer sounded unsure now, and in his periphery he saw her look between him and Rey. “Supreme Leader, if I may be so bold — the information I carry is sensitive — what is the designation of your companion?”

Rey stared unflinchingly into his eyes as she answered for him.

“Oh, don’t mind me. I’m nothing,” she spat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a 'deleted scene' (sort of) from this chapter that I'll be posting separately as "The Thirteenth Night", so please check it out if you liked this! It's kinda smutty. I'm not sorry.


	8. Surrender

“General, the Resistance has overrun the maintenance hangar on Naboo, as you predicted.”

“Thank you, Commander. Proceed as planned.”

* * *

 

“I’m nothing,” Rey spat, and was painfully disappointed in herself when she felt tears prick her eyes.

Ben turned from her, and she was grateful for the small mercy. He rounded instead on the officer that had unwittingly fanned the flames of their anger.

“Leave,” he told her, his voice a low and dangerous rumble. She obeyed.

When he finally addressed Rey again he still sounded like thunder, and the bass shuddered through her.

“Rey, I am beyond tired of this wilful ignorance you insist on. You know the answer to all of your questions; you have _always_ known.”

She did know. Had known it since he reached out to her and pleaded with her to join him. No one had ever looked at her like that, with _that_ in their eyes, yet she recognised it: it was more ancient and universal than the Force itself. He had shown it to her again in the ruined castle on Takodana, and she had followed him here anyway, knowing somehow that it would lead to this moment.

He stared her down with the intensity of an inferno, and she hardened her own expression to equal him. But even as she revelled in her ability to match him at every turn she realised the true tragedy of it. They would never bridge the void that separated them. As much as she wanted to reach for him — and she knew he felt the same pull, the same desperation — she didn’t know if she had the strength to do it. This thing between them was overwhelming in its expanse; good and bad, beautiful and terrible, tantalisingly close but unimaginably far away.

She couldn’t. Too much had happened. Her hope-fire flickered inside her and she scrabbled for it desperately, holding it as close as she possibly could, _begging_ it not to go out.

Ben’s expression fell and he sucked in a shaky breath, and she thought he must be reaching the same conclusion she had, and that this was the end. _Again_. Something inside her broke and she was no longer able to hold back the tears.

Suddenly he was moving, and for an eternal moment she couldn’t fathom what her eyes were showing her, because impossibly he was moving _toward_ her, until he was so close that he was all she could see.

“Have you forgotten so easily, Rey? We’ll stand together. If you can’t surrender then _I_ will.” His voice was so soft that she could barely hear him, but his lips were near enough that the words fluttered against her skin. She felt his fingertips brush hers, and her hope _blazed_.

An image struck her then like lightning, fleeting but crystal clear, of them entwined together: his lips on hers, her hands running through his hair while his ran over her torso, her legs wrapped around him provocatively.

Her breath caught and before she could even begin to wonder what had happened she saw the red blush creeping up Ben’s neck: an undeniable admission that the image originated from _him_ , and she understood that it was something he had not intended for her to see.

He tried to rip his eyes from hers, but she reached out with Jedi reflexes to hold his face steady between her hands. Her heart hammered against her chest with such force that she was sure it would leave visible bruises.

She leaned up and into him until the tip of her nose brushed his, and waited. He gazed down at her, brown irises almost completely swallowed by wide pupils. For a moment nothing happened, and Rey wondered if she had completely misread the situation.

He moved with agonising slowness to close the gap and press his lips to hers, at first softly, so very very softly, as if he were asking permission; as if she hadn’t been _begging_ him seconds before. She nudged back against him infinitesimally, and that was enough for him to throw aside all hesitation. Together they effortlessly fell into rhythm. His hands rose to her waist and she was thankful for the warm weight of them, keeping her anchored to this moment, lest she float away on the tide that was rushing over her.

She thought of his vision and began to run her fingers through his hair in as best an imitation as she could manage. He gasped and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her so tightly to him that she was sure they were melding into one person. Their tempo quickened and now there was a desperate sort of urgency to his movements. His teeth smashed against hers and he pulled back to whisper a quick, strangled apology before diving for her again.

She smiled against his lips, feeling oddly powerful in her ability to obliterate Ben Solo’s composure just by touching his scalp. But she wasn’t ready to do that leg thing he had imagined. The thought of it made her hands tremble as they carded through his hair.

Suddenly her feet left the floor, and she wasn’t sure when they had moved but he was guiding her upwards to sit on his desk, moving both her knees to one side when she kept them primly together. They could have been level this way if Ben drew himself up to his full height, but inexplicably he maintained his slumped posture so she had to angle her face down to keep contact. He groaned softly as her tongue slid against his lips and she began to think that maybe she wanted her thighs around him after all, just to see what new noises they could drag out of him.

She sprang from him when her comm beeped to signify an incoming call. He reached for her again immediately, his hands sliding across the desk to cradle her hips, his face large and dark in front of hers. “Ignore it,” he murmured, moving up to kiss her again.

Rey battled with herself for a moment, trying very hard to be objective in spite of his swollen red lips and messy cloud of hair and warm beseeching eyes. Logic won. She batted him away, not unkindly. He compromised by leaning back from her torso, but keeping his hands on her hips. He squeezed lightly, and even though she knew it was a sign of acceptance the contact was so beyond anything she had felt before from another human, and she had the ridiculous urge to rub her thighs together. She fought through it, reaching inside herself to a calm place and plucking at a meditative string.

“I can’t ignore it, not _now_ when everything is about to change. This must be important.”

Poe's voice filled the room, his tone clipped and perfunctory. She hadn't heard it in three years. “Rey, this is Poe Dameron. General Hux is positioning his forces to invade Naared Alpha. He must have known we were distracted on Naboo. I’ve called on all Resistance personnel to run defense while the base is evacuated.” He paused, just long enough for it to be awkward. “Can I count on you?”

Rey reached a stage beyond even panic. She felt only calm resolve. “We’ll be there.” There was no hesitation in her voice. “Send through the coordinates. And Poe, _be careful_.”

Poe ended the call without responding and Rey nudged Ben away from her so she had room to slide her feet back to the floor.

In the silence that followed her resolve cracked, just a hairline fracture, but enough to let her fear shine through. She looked up toward him but was unable to fully meet his gaze. He was staring at her as if she had grown a second head.

“Are you all insane? Revealing yourselves for the sake of a single base? You only won your ships twenty minutes ago. What is on ‘Naared Alpha’ that is important enough to make this risk worth taking?”

She didn’t trust herself to speak, so she reached out with her feelings and pulled him into her, directing him to her knowledge about the base and its occupant.

_Your mother is there._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this one is a bit shorter, but hopefully it was worth it?


	9. Heroes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The First Order strikes. Rey and Finn reunite.

Finn couldn’t help but be little annoyed that his great accomplishment -- _six years_ in the making -- was unable to be celebrated. As soon as their battle in the hangar was over (to be fair, ‘battle’ was overstating the little skirmish that had taken place before their men completely overran the place) Poe had made contact, and Finn had been forced to board one of his shiny new ships and leave the pretty green planet behind.

He and Hatchet had decided with very little words to split their forces in half. Finn took his men to reinforce Poe on Naared Alpha while Hatchet remained on Naboo to protect their new territory. Finn brought Elio with him and kept him close, because he thought that’s what Rey would have wanted. Truthfully the boy was far beyond needing a babysitter, but he was a connection to Finn’s best friend, and so Finn _needed_ to protect him.

Elio looked almost excited, tapping his foot against the floor and fingering his lightsaber impatiently. Finn watched him from the corner of his eye and remembered the way he had felt before his own first battle. On Jakku. Before everything had changed.

He hoped Elio wouldn’t have to go through the things he had; wouldn’t have to confront demons inside him that he hadn’t even known were there. No one should have to go through that. That’s what the Resistance was about.

So Finn squashed down his bitterness at the lack of fanfare and looked ahead to the next battle, hoping that maybe one day every being in the galaxy would have the time and freedom to celebrate every single little victory that came their way.

* * *

 

They were moving too slowly.

The Resurrection was formidable, and the bodies inside were the greatest asset they had right now, but they were useless if they were unable to actually get to the fight before it was over.

Rey hated the thought of leaving him, especially after what had just happened between them, but Leia was too important. Leia was the Resistance. She was hope. And she was Ben’s mother. Rey didn’t know exactly what the consequences would be if anything were to happen to her, but she knew that everything would change.

“Ben,” she said, trying and failing to steel her voice, “I want you to let me out before the next jump.”

He turned to look at her with discerning eyes. “I thought you might say something like that.” He paused. “I can’t come with you, Rey. I don’t trust half of the officers on this ship to hold it for me.”

“You left it two weeks ago to meet me on Takodana,” she pointed out.

He reached for her waist and pulled her to him, her head tucking in neatly under his chin. Rey was stunned by the unreserved way he wrapped his arms around her, as if he had always held her like this. “You were worth the risk,” he said quietly. After a long moment he pulled back from her slightly and she raised her eyes to meet his. She was still rendered speechless by the intimacy of the embrace, but he was already thinking ahead, his brow furrowed in concentration.

“I want you to take a battalion with you.”

Within minutes they were inside his private hangar and his shuttle was being prepared for her use. Rey still couldn’t believe that he had agreed to let her do this. Her foot tapped as she watched astromech droids roam over the ship performing their pre-flight checks, fingering her lightsaber impatiently.

“Don’t focus so much on this one battle that you lose sight of the bigger picture,” Ben cautioned her.

Rey flushed, because that was exactly what she was doing. Because as much as she disliked this, she _hated_ the bigger picture and the nameless, formless enemy that was hurtling toward them. She had spent sixteen days with him hiding from it.

“I’m afraid,” she admitted. “This isn’t something that I can solve by hitting it with a lightsaber, or lifting rocks. What else do I have?”

“You have me.” He was so close that she was forced to lift her chin to look up at him, raising her brows sceptically.

“You came to me for help, remember?”

She saw the flash of irritation pass over his features. “Have faith in me.” It was spoken like a command.

_Not like that_ , she reproached him. Then she took his hand in hers to soften the blow.

“I do have faith in you, Ben.”

He looked at her _that_ way again. It made him look small, somehow, though she knew that was ridiculous. He was big, and broad; so very suitable and so very willing to be her shelter from all of this. Something clenched inside her and she decided she wanted to kiss him again, but found herself overcome with a sudden rush of uncharacteristic shyness.

He watched her intently, as if he could actually _see_ the war going on within her, and perhaps he could. His gaze drifted down to their joined hands and he began to lift them, using his thumb to stroke her knuckles until it was high enough to be replaced by his lips.

Rey felt as though she could burst through the thick steel walls of the ship and fly them both to Naared Alpha in an instant.

He released her, breaking the spell. “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” he vowed.

She could only nod. But then that didn’t seem like enough, so she tried to smile. The effort of moving her lips caused a little giggle to spill out of them. He smiled too, then — not a soft lift of his lips, but a bright and brilliant beam which showed his teeth, and her breath left her as she realised it was the first time she had ever seen this.

She didn’t know how much more of this she could take, so she boarded the shuttle, released the airlock, and flew away from him without looking back.

* * *

 

Finn always insisted on taking point, putting himself most at risk. Elio could see why Rey liked him so much, but at this moment he didn’t have enough energy left in him for appreciation.

He was exhausted. He had expected his first real battle to be exciting and adrenaline-packed, and it was… for about three minutes. The adrenaline was still there, but his fight-or-flight instinct had quickly decided that ‘flight’ was the correct option here, and he had to force himself to keep his saber moving when his emotions and muscles groaned in unanimous protest.

He was scared, and he didn’t care who knew it. He would shout it out to the entire First Order if they would pause for him; if the clamour of battle would just _shut up_ for one damned second.

A shuttle landed and _more_ Troopers came barrelling from it towards him, and Elio wanted to cry. But suddenly they turned and they began to fire on his enemies, and impossibly he saw _Rey_ among them, her blue blade dancing expertly.

Finn saw her too, and he whooped in delight. Rey fought her way toward them and Finn paused in the middle of battle to embrace her, his smile threatening to split his face in half. The two battalions of Troopers continued to clash together in a bizarre homogenous mass of bodies, giving the unarmoured rebels a moment of reprieve.

“Rey!”

“Finn!”

They beamed at each other like idiots for a few seconds.

“You changed your hair,” Finn said, and she laughed.

She turned to Elio then, and embraced him as well. He reached _down_ to reciprocate -- when had that happened? -- and was shocked when he felt tears prick his eyes. He hadn’t realised how hard this would be. How much he would need her.

“Rey,” Finn said again, breaking the spell. “Leia is still below ground. We need to get her out.”

“Right,” said Rey with determination, turning toward the base’s entrance without hesitation. Elio was awed by her.

“No,” said Finn. “Not there. That’s the base, but there’s a second bunker that Leia evacuated to before the battle started. Listen, I’ll go there to get her if you stay here with your Troops and keep the First Order distracted. By the way, you’ll have to explain to me where in the galaxy you found these guys!”

Rey laughed. “It’s a long story.”

“I want to hear it,” Finn said. They hugged again quickly, then he gestured to three of his companions and they disappeared silently into the treeline.

Rey turned to Elio and cocked her head toward the throng of battle before them. “Ready for more?” she asked. And he was.

They moved through the pack of bodies to the front line and began deflecting the enemies’ bolts back toward them. At one point he turned to glance at Rey, needing to make sure she was okay, and was surprised to find her already looking at him, watching out for him even as she kept twirling her saber.

Suddenly three TIE fighters broke formation and flew over their heads, away from the battle.

“They’re heading for the second bunker!” someone yelled. “They’ve found it!”

Before any of them had time to react an explosion rocked the ground beneath them and a mammoth orange flower bloomed, growing rapidly towards the sun. The battlefield paused. Rey had flung her arm over Elio protectively, even as she screamed in dismay, and he felt a rush of affection for her.

When the shockwaves settled she turned to face him.

“Do you think they’re okay?” she asked, sounding very young.


	10. Loss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They all deal with it in their own way.

Rey stood in the base’s kitchen, alone and still, for a very long time. The only sound was that of her breathing. And so she quieted that too, because how could she ever breathe again in this cruel new reality?

Finn was _good_. So very, very good. The best person she’d ever known. The first person who had ever cared about her. She was just a girl in a marketplace -- billions and billions just like her -- and he’d reached out to help her, without a second thought. He’d never stopped trying to protect her, not for one second. Now that was gone, and she’d never get it back. Before him she’d had nothing but loneliness; she’d never even thought about what she would have _after_ him. Never considered that such an existence was possible.

Someone was trying to get her attention. How did they even get in here? She turned to tell them exactly where they could go, but paused when she saw Ben. He looked frantic.

“What’s happening? Is it over? _Fuck_ this piece of garbage ship! Are you hurt? Rey…”

She croaked out something approximating his name, crumpling at the waist. He wasn’t corporeal enough to catch her, but the sheer strength of his presence in the Force kept her from tumbling to the ground. She met his eyes, and the naked anxiety on his face only intensified her own panicked grief.

“Rey, where are you? Why isn’t anyone helping you? Where is the medi-droid?!” His eyes darted somewhere behind her futilely, trying to get some sense of her surroundings.

She swallowed, her throat stripped raw by a thousand razor blades. “I’m not hurt. Ben, it was Finn. He… he’s gone.”

His posture relaxed entirely. He looked down at his feet for a second, sighing. When he looked back up at her it was with a softness that she had first seen in her hut on Ahch-To, a lifetime ago. His gaze had warmed her that night, but it was useless to her now, when she was so infinitely cold.

“I thought you were hurt. I’m glad you’re alright.”

“Alri— I’m not — he’s DEAD, Ben.”

Ben nodded as if he understood, but then he opened his mouth and proved that he didn’t. Not even a little. “I’m sorry. I know he was your friend,” he practically cooed at her, but his attempt to soothe her had the opposite effect.

“My... friend —I don’t — how can you — he wasn’t my FRIEND Ben, he was… he was FINN. He was ALIVE and now he ISN’T. How do I — what do I _do_?” Her tongue had swollen and her lips had dried up, or maybe the other way around, she didn’t know, would never know anything again, she had lost control of it all, and so she just looked up at him, willing him to understand.

He placed his hands somewhere approximating her shoulders, not quite able to touch her through this connection. He looked calm. Purposeful. “I do. I do understand. He meant something to you, and you’re feeling a heavy loss right now. But you can move on from this. You’re so strong, Rey. And you have me.”

She recoiled as if he were spitting acid. “So what if I have you? You’re not him; you could never be! No one could!”

Ben’s features sharpened. His fingers tensed, his hands trembling, as though he wanted to shake her. “No, I’m not him. I’m me -- Ben Solo, or Kylo Ren, or whatever you want to call me, it doesn’t matter, I’m _yours_ ,” he spat, his voice rising with every word. “I’ve given everything I have to you. What more do I have to do for you, Rey?”

There was a long pause. Then her voice: steady now, and dangerously quiet.

“Just go, Ben.”

“Go where?” He sounded exasperated, of all things. “I thought you were still on Naared Alpha - I’m three parsecs away.”

She met his eyes with her teeth bared, feeling a fury that she hadn’t felt in years. “No, I said GO! I. Don’t. Want. You. Here, you selfish snake!”

“Rey…”

“Get OUT of my head!”

She slammed a door somewhere deep inside her, and he blinked out of her existence.

Her anger deflated instantly, and then all that she had left was loss. She tried to re-open whatever it was she had closed, but he was gone, and she was alone.

Dimly she registered a real door opening. Elio appeared and walked toward her cautiously.

“Rey?”

Needing contact, she moved to him and placed her hands on either side of his face, surprised when she realised she was reaching _up_ to him. When had that happened?

“I love you, you know that, right?” Her voice sounded desperate, even to her. She needed _someone_ to know.

“Yeah,” he replied, patting one of her hands. “I love you too, Rey.”

“Go and find the others. Please. Just… go and be with them. And tell them I’ll be there. Soon? When I can. I haven’t forgotten them.”

He nodded, and without her indicating anything he bent down so she could kiss his forehead before leaving him.

* * *

 

“Leia’s safe. She’s on her way to you, on the Falcon.” Poe was careful to keep his tone even.

The voice that projected from his pad was just as steady. “I’ll be ready. Don’t worry, Poe, this planet is fully secure. The only two channels that are open are this one and Finn’s.”

Poe hung his head and this time when he spoke he couldn’t keep his voice from cracking. “Rose, listen, there’s something else you need to know…”

He broke off as the door slammed open and Rey staggered toward him, her bloodshot eyes roving wildly.

“I need to get out of here, right now. How do I get to Naboo?” She didn’t look at him as she spoke; her paranoid eyes darted around the room to examine every shadow.

“No, don’t — you can’t,” Poe stammered helplessly, grabbing at her upper arms to try to hold her steady, but she immediately began to wriggle away from him.

Rose was clueless. “Is that Rey I can hear? Rey, hi! I’m so glad you’re okay.”

Rey disregarded both of them. “ _Forget it_ , I’ll figure it out own my own, like _everything else_!” She ripped herself from Poe’s attempted embrace and ran from the room. He stared after her with unseeing eyes.

The long silence was broken by a disembodied voice, and this time there was fear and uncertainty in it.

“Poe?”

“Rose…”

* * *

 

MD-1155 knew that the situation was odd, but he hadn’t been raised to question orders.

For the eighteen months that he had spent stationed on Ryloth he had always followed an exact procedure for receiving and distributing all supplies. So he recognised that it was strange that he had been specifically instructed to _not_ follow that procedure this time.

He lifted one of them into his hand, feeling the weight of it curiously. The fifty palm-sized canisters he had received looked unremarkable, but he got a malicious vibe from them. He couldn’t explain it; they just looked creepy.

He shrugged and did as he was instructed, making a mental note to mention this to Finn the next time they made contact.

* * *

 

Poe spent twenty long minutes staring at the immense ship hanging over them until finally transports began to bleed from it, falling to the planet’s surface.

Kylo Ren emerged from one of them, stalking immediately toward him.

“Where is Rey?” he said, and Poe almost flinched at the _lack_ of malice in his tone. He didn’t expect this.

“How many men do you have?” Poe asked, both because he needed to know and because he needed another moment to process whatever was going on between Ren and Rey.

“Thirteen thousand, nine hundred and six. They’re yours if you tell me where she is.” As if on cue white-armoured Stormtroopers began to pour out of the transports.

Poe hesitated. This was _Kylo Ren_ , Supreme Leader of the First Order, and all around Bad Guy.

But Rey had said that she trusted him.

Ren stared at him, one fist clenched by his side. There was something in his eyes— submitting, pleading? Whatever it was, it was human.

Poe opened his mouth to answer, but another voice beat him to it.

“Naboo. She left three hours ago.” Poe turned and was surprised to see Elio, Rey’s Padawan, looking Ren up and down discerningly. “She’ll be in Theed. The market district. Do you need more, or is that enough for you to find her?”

Ren turned from them immediately and began stalking back to his transport.

“Wait,” Poe called after him. “I think you should leave her alone. She needs some time.”

Ren paused in his stride and turned his head slightly in acknowledgement.

“She’ll have it. It will take me _days_ to get there.” His voice cracked. Poe let him go, because he didn’t know what else to do.

When Ren reached his transport he paused, turning to speak to one of the Troopers. The man and his company saluted him and began marching toward Poe.

* * *

 

Rey wandered through the streets of Theed aimlessly, not knowing where to begin looking. Why hadn’t she asked Poe for more details?

She hadn’t changed her clothes since it happened, and as she passed through a marketplace the stall owners pointedly refused to make eye contact with her. She must look completely unkempt.

Finally she saw two men in partial Stormtrooper armour leaving an alehouse. They didn’t look too bad. They laughed jovially together, and the people in the street didn’t seem afraid of them. She hurried to catch up to them, grabbing the arm of one to get his attention.

“Do you know Hatchet?”

The man looked down at her with light disapproval, as if she were a misbehaving child. Rey thought again about how wild she must look right now.

“I — I’m a friend of his,” she said lamely.

“Get out of here, girl,” the other Trooper said. He hadn’t stopped moving, and now he beckoned to his partner to follow.

“Kylo Ren sent me,” she tried again.

They laughed.

Desperate, she reached for her lightsaber and ignited it, holding it aloft. She assumed a posture that wasn’t aggressive, exactly, but demonstrated her willingness to become so if they further tested her patience.

The Troopers’ eyes widened and an uncertain glance passed between them.

“Maybe we should take you to the Captain after all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry :(


	11. Accommodation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uploading two chapters today because I feel bad about the last one. Hopefully this helps a little.

He was still a monster.

No matter where he turned his gaze he could still see that look in her eyes. He had seen it before: in the forest, before she had literally and metaphorically split him in two. A part of him was furious that he had to endure it _again_ , after everything he had done for her.

But had he truly done those things for _her_? He had kept the Resistance bases hidden, and he had made her de facto mistress of the Resurrection, and he had rushed to deliver his forces to defend the General, all because he loved the way Rey smiled at him. _He_ loved the way she smiled. Even when he had convinced himself that he was trying to please her, at the core it had always been about what he wanted, not about what _she_ needed.

He had told her that he had surrendered, but he hadn’t, not really. He was still holding on.

He knew now that he didn’t have room inside himself for Ben Solo _and_ Kylo Ren _and_ Rey.

So he finally let go.

* * *

 

Rey laid down on the cot that had been Finn’s, wondering if it smelled like him.

The room was very bare. There were clothes hanging on a chair, and a cup half-filled with water sitting by the bed, but apart from that it was a completely functional, impersonal room.

She had come here hoping to find him, but he truly was gone.

Rey kept her mind open, and waited. She needed to see Ben; needed to tell him what she was feeling; needed to explain why she had said the things she said. Speaking to Hatchet had helped — he and Finn had become good friends — but it wasn’t the same.

He didn’t come. Now that they were apart they were once again at the mercy of the inscrutable Force to connect and separate them as It saw fit.

She tried desperately to fall asleep, remembering that he _always_ felt her when she slept. If she wished it hard enough then maybe she could speak to him that way, and control herself in her dreams.

She laid awake for hours. When she finally heard and smelled Hatchet cooking breakfast she moved to the kitchen to greet him, not bothering to mention her sleepless night. But the Captain smiled sympathetically at her as he handed her a cup of juice, and she got the feeling that he knew.

* * *

 

Poe made a final sweep through Leia’s office, shutting down her communication hubs one by one. They were all compromised now. As he reached to flip the last switch the incoming alert light began to flash. Sighing, he dutifully typed in his personal code to accept the transmission.

“What do you want?” he wasn’t in the mood for pleasantries.

“Hello, uh, this is MD-1155. I’ve been trying to get into contact with Finn..? He told me to use this line only if it was an emergency and I couldn’t reach him.”

“You’re speaking with Admiral Poe Dameron. What’s the emergency?”

A pause. “I’m not sure.”

Poe’s temper was quickly reaching breaking point. “What?”

“We received an unscheduled supply shipment with instructions to distribute canisters to all the major cities. And now… the civs are acting strangely.”

Poe’s heart dropped. _No no no no_. “Where are you calling from?”

“Ryloth.”

“Okay, listen to me very carefully, MD-whatever. You need to gather as many healthy Twi’leks as you can and take them far away. Somewhere rural, I don’t know, just _away_ from wherever you dumped those canisters. If anyone starts exhibiting any symptoms — leave them behind.”

* * *

 

_Finally_ he felt her. He followed the trail of her sleep to a non-descript house on a non-descript street.

When his knock went unanswered he opened the door cautiously. The room beyond was a makeshift weaponry-cum-communication post, with armour strewn about haphazardly. The clinking of cutlery could be heard to his left, and he followed it.

He entered the small kitchen and was met with a fair-skinned man wearing Trooper underarmour, perhaps a decade or so older than himself. The Trooper nodded an acknowledgement, but didn’t otherwise interrupt the meal for the sake of the unexpected company, and he was left entirely unsure how to proceed.

“I’m Ben Solo,” he said finally. “I’m here for Rey.”

“Hatchet,” the man replied, bizarrely; it took Ben a moment to realise that he was offering his own name.

Ben had learned a long time ago to be wary of this rarer, older breed of Stormtroopers. This man had had a life before the First Order; and, apparently, had found another after it.

Hatchet stood and moved to the kitchenette to take a plate from the cupboard, placing it on the table opposite his own. He sat down again, apparently completely at ease in front of a man who looked very much like Kylo Ren.

“She’s asleep. Best not disturb her yet; the poor thing hasn’t slept in days. You may as well sit and have a bite.”

“You’re not surprised to see me,” Ben said. It wasn’t question. He sat, but left the plate untouched. Why was this so difficult? He had spent the last decade ordering these men around as if they were nothing.

“Rey told me you might come,” Hatchet responded between bites. “She told me a lot, actually,” he admitted, looking thoughtful for a moment as he considered Ben, but then he shrugged. “I think she just needed a friend.”

Ben swallowed the urge to swallow his guilt, instead forcing himself to feel the full weight of it.

“You’re right. I’m glad you succeeded where I didn’t.”

“You succeeded enough,” Hatchet replied casually, and there was a glint of humour in his eyes.

Ben burned with the desire to enter this man’s mind and discover exactly what it was that Rey had said to him. He wasn’t entirely sure why he held back. There was something about the Trooper that he wanted to like — although he was constantly aware of the fact that Hatchet had become a traitor to the First Order while Kylo Ren had still been recognised as Supreme Leader.

His awareness of Rey faded, familiarly, and he knew this meant she was waking up.

A few tense minutes later she entered the room, and Ben stood to greet her. Unlike Hatchet she _did_ seem surprised to see him, and his shame roared through him again like a tornado.

He felt Hatchet move quickly from the room and decided that he liked the man after all.

* * *

 

Hux sat back in his plush armchair, eyes lazily closed as he listened to the long, drawn-out battle report. He did not debase himself by being present at the battlefield — he didn’t want Organa to think that she was worth his time — but he _needed_ to know all the juicy details of his victory.

“At 1532 hours Kylo Ren’s shuttle exited hyperspace — “

“ _What_?” Hux spat.

The droid continued in the same monotone. “ — and made planetfall. One Jedi alighted, followed by fifty-one Stormtroopers. They joined the battle on behalf of the Resistance.”

Later that night Hux stood in his private chambers, staring at himself in the mirror. So Kylo Ren had found the girl again, and joined forces with the Resistance scum.

This was fine.

Hux decided that he was unstoppable and, feeling reckless in his power, he stalked through the ship in his nightclothes, pretending not to notice the shocked looks his officers gave him when he reached the bridge. “Make contact with Doctor Dwyer, in his laboratory on Drongar. And send a battalion there. He has some merchandise I would like to collect.”

* * *

 

“You came.”

“I said I would.” He flushed. “Well, no, I didn’t say that, _you_ said that, on Takodana. Do you remember?”

“I remember, Ben.”

“That was important,” he said earnestly. “But the most important thing was when we touched hands, years ago, when we said—“

“I _remember_ , Ben.”

“—you’re not alone. So... I came.” He paused, and when he spoke next there was an uncertainty in his voice that broke her heart. “Do you want me to go?”

Rey held her hand out to him and he moved towards her to take it without hesitation, as she knew he would. She allowed herself to recognise how unwithholding he had become with his affection for her and felt a pang of guilt for running from him.

How could she begin to explain to him all of the things that she had felt in these two days that had lasted an eternity?

“Ben, I’m not ready to hear you say anything else, so can you just listen?” she asked, unnecessarily, for he had made no further attempt to speak.

Her words came quickly, pouring out of her before the thoughts had fully formed. “I don’t want to be alone again. I mean, I did want to be alone, and that’s why I shut you out, but I regretted it straight away. But… I don’t think I have anything to apologise for. I want to apologise, because I know that I must have hurt you and that’s not what I wanted, but you were kind of a jerk and you need to learn to not do that anymore. Does that make sense? Even if it doesn’t, I don’t care. That’s how I feel.”

She paused to take a few deep breaths, and when she continued it was with a modicum of deliberateness.

“So, I guess I am sorry… but I’m not… but I’m so glad you’re here. I’m _sad_.” Her words trailed off until they were barely a whisper. “I really want you to kiss me again.”

He closed the gap between them in an instant. This kiss wasn’t like the first. The first time had been fuelled by passion, but this was something else. Different but equal. His lips brushed hers with soft, slow strokes that made her knees feel weak.

He reached out and beckoned her inside him, guiding her to a place that was full of _light_. Her own presence echoed off the walls and she realised she was literally inside his compassion for her. He wrapped it around her mind securely, just as he wrapped his arms around her body.

She broke away first and looked up at him, trying to smile but failing when she saw the wetness of her tears on his cheeks. So he smiled for her and pulled her to his chest the way he did on the Resurrection, a lifetime ago. She felt his heartbeat under her hand and silently promised it that it was everything.

“Ben.” She whispered.

“Hmm?”

She nuzzled her face into his chest, muffling her words. “Nothing. I just wanted to say it.”

He pulled her in tighter and held her there for a few long moments before finally breaking his silence.

“Can I talk yet?” he asked her, only half-sarcastically.

She nodded against him.

“Thank you.” No sarcasm now. “What do you want to do?”

She shrugged as best she could with his arms around her.

“Do you want to stay here?”

Another shrug. Then, deciding she needed give him a more substantial response, she said “I don’t care. I’m just glad you’re here. When I stopped it -- I mean, when I closed the… door, whatever it is… I thought maybe it meant--”

He interrupted her, sounding a little annoyed. “If you think that _a door_ is going to separate us then you haven’t been paying very much attention.”

She smiled, squeezing his torso lightly.

He squeezed back. “If you are not particularly attached to this place then I know somewhere we can go.”

She would gladly have travelled with him to whatever hell Snoke was in, if he would hold her this way when they got there.

“Maybe in a few minutes,” she decided, twisting her fingers into his cloak securely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have been on the end of one of my many (many) rants about Ben/Kylo's characterisation then you might think this was a weird direction for me to take. And it was. But keep reading, I guess.
> 
> Anyway: Rey and Ben are both on Naboo? And he wants to take her somewhere?? What could it mean???


	12. Symbiosis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some necessary apologies.

Rey didn’t remember the journey here. She woke the next morning with the groggy disorientation of someone who had slept too long. Ben’s presence seemed to have signified to her body that it was time to catch up on the many hours of sleep it had foregone.

Inexplicably he had brought her to a palace. She tried to figure out where they were, and failed. She knew that Leia was a princess once, but her home planet had been destroyed long ago. Rey set aside the mystery in favour of enjoying the scenery.

She had woken in a room overlooking the stillest, clearest water she had ever seen. The lake was formed by a ring of mountains; the lush greenery covering the slopes reminded her of Takodana. In the middle of the lake was an island, and laid out on the sand there were three children. They were too far away for her to see their details, but she could feel the Force flowing through them and transmitting their innocent glee as they basked in the sun. She could feel the Force flowing through _everything_ here. So much concentrated life and light in this perfect little valley. Rey thought of her Padawans and vowed to bring them here one day.

This view was almost everything she would ever need. There was only one thing missing.

He was there when she turned around.

He was carrying a plate of colourful fruits, and Rey realised that _two_ things had been missing from her life a moment ago.

Ben sat opposite her on the window seat, placing the bounty between them. Rey selected an oval-shaped yellow fruit that was surprisingly juicy when she cut into it. She couldn’t figure out how to eat it without the edges of the slice rubbing against her face, but it was so delicious that she didn’t care.

“Where are we?” she asked between bites.

“Still on Naboo. This house belonged to my grandmother,” he said, reaching out to wipe away a smudge of juice from her cheek. She blushed, but didn’t restrain her enthusiasm for the messy fruit.

She wondered why Han Solo had needed to make a living by smuggling, if his mother had owned _this_. Something on her face must have given away her thoughts, because Ben clarified further.

“My Skywalker grandmother.”

“Oh,” she said, feeling foolish for her ignorance. It had never occurred to her that such a woman had existed. The woman who had loved Darth Vader...

“Was she— I mean, what was she like?”

“She was a politician. She served as Queen of Naboo and then as Senator.” There was a forced casualness to his tone, and Rey got the impression that he had as much interest in his grandmother as he did in her ill-fated husband. “She mostly supported relief strategies, and strongly opposed the Clone Wars and the centralisation of of the Republic government.”

Nothing like Vader, then. Rey frowned, trying to make sense of it all.

Ben stood and made his way to the bed, stretching out in the same place she had woken up. He looked past her out to the lake, obviously enjoying the view. Rey’s stomach fluttered as she watched him. Maybe there was some sense in two people who were so different finding their way to each other.

When she had sampled every fruit and cleaned her hands and face she perched on the edge of the bed next to him, a little irritated when he didn’t move over; he had plenty of room.

“I’m sorry,” he said finally, “for the things I said, for trying to make it about me. You were right: I am a selfish snake. I hope you never lose anything again, but if you do I’ll… hold you, or feed you, or kill something, or grow something. Or go away, if you want me to. Whatever you need; _anything_ you need. I’ll be better, Rey. I swear it.”

Rey took a long moment to try to figure out the best way to tell him why this wasn’t what she wanted to hear, or what he should take away from this. Even though she appreciated the sentiment behind it so much that her entire body felt light and giddy.

“And I’m sorry about Finn,” he continued, when she remained silent. “I wish he had lived. I’ve seen how he made you feel. Happy. _Free_.” A pause. “I don’t know how to give you that.” He sounded sad, but she wasn’t sure if it was for her or for himself.

_Both_ , she heard.

Her mouth was a desert. But she needed him to understand, so she licked her lips in an effort to help the words glide out. “Because I’m _not_ free when I’m with you. I never will be, and neither will you. But that doesn’t mean that I’m not happy; it’s just… a different kind of happiness. Everything about you, about _us_ , it’s so very different. I don’t want to ever live without it. But there are other things that I don’t want to live without — things that have nothing to do with you. Things that you don’t even like, or agree with, but I love them anyway. Can you accept that? And… I’ll accept the same about you.”

He reached out to her then, and she didn’t hesitate to take his hand as he spoke. “I want you to have everything.”

She smiled; he didn’t. His intense gaze never wavered from hers as he paused for effect before continuing:

“But, for me, there’s just you.”

She squeezed his hand and laced her fingers through his. “I know. But I hope that changes. This” she gestured between them “is everything… but there’s more. Friendship and family and laughter and piles of delicious food and grass so soft you could swear you were lying on a cloud. An entire galaxy of happiness, and I want you to feel all of it with me. You deserve that, Ben.”

He didn’t look convinced.

She cocked her head. “Maybe just a nice pen, then?”

He beamed at her, a real smile that showed his teeth, like when he had kissed her hand. _That’s number two_ , she thought, vowing to continue counting them until she reached one million.

Their hands still linked, she moved to lay on the bed next to him, giving him a playful shove when he still made no effort to make room for her. The stubborn brat refused to budge and she ended up laying half on top of him. He smirked brazenly up at her, and she realised this was his intention all along.

She wanted to kiss him then, so she did, and she tried _so hard_ not to hesitate, but she wasn’t quite there yet. Her cheeks and the tips of her ears blazed red, but he didn’t seem to mind. He returned her kiss as if it were the most natural thing in the world for him, and somehow his solid confidence caused her to blush dissipate -- or was it just that her entire body was blazing, now? He never untangled his fingers from hers, and she never ever wanted him to. A ridiculous image came to her mind of them stuck together forever by their hands, trying to navigate all the simple activities of their lives. She didn’t know if the thought originated from her or from him, but when she giggled against his mouth he pulled back slightly to nuzzle her nose with his, smiling. _Three_.

They stayed there for aeons, peppering their faces with chaste kisses; his free hand warm on her waist, hers dipping up under his shirt ever so slightly when she decided she was finally brave enough to feel the forbidden skin over his abdomen. His thumb traced hers with a tenderness that made her heart feel too full for her chest. He wanted more -- that much was pressingly obvious to her -- and so did she, but _not yet_ , she thought. And he understood.

* * *

 

Rose rose from her bed, listening intently. The base was silent, just as she had hoped.

She crept through the hallways to her station, pausing at every corner even though she knew there was no one behind it.

Poe wouldn’t like this. Leia wouldn’t like it. They had both spent the last six years encouraging caution and restraint, and she had obeyed as best as she could. But things had changed, and Rose was going crazy doing _nothing_.

Finn had died to save this Resistance, and if the Resistance wouldn’t help itself to survive then Rose would have to do it for them.

She closed the door behind her quietly and sat down at her terminal, inputting codes that she had had for years now, but never used. No matter how many layers of shielding she placed around her probe, she knew that it could be discovered eventually. It was only a matter of time until someone looked into Hux’s logs and found the discrepancy, tracing it back to her, and this place.

It was a huge risk.

It paid off.

* * *

 

Ben woke late that night with Rey in his arms, feeling happy. That was new. Her mind was open to him as it always was in sleep. She was dreaming. The shapes and sounds were too vague to make out, but he sensed that she was dreaming of _him_ , and he smiled into her hair.

The dream faded. She snuggled back into him, murmuring a greeting. He supposed now was a good time to tell her.

“He’s gone,” he said, after giving her a moment to properly wake.

She twisted in his arms to look at him, yawning. “Who?”

The darkness of the night made them whisper to each other, which was completely illogical since they were entirely alone, but he liked it.

“Kylo Ren.”

He had expected her to be pleased, but instead she frowned at him.

“He’s not gone. I’m looking at him right now.”

He shook his head, pulling her closer until her nose bumped his chin. “No, see, I finally let go. It’s just us now. No third person.”

He pressed a kiss to her forehead to seal the statement, and pulled back to smile down at her. She didn’t smile back. He saw sadness in her eyes, and pity. He felt a flash of anger at her unwillingness to understand, then stamped it down quickly, because he had _let go_ of that.

“There never was a third person, Ben. Just you.”

“But _you_ said...” he trailed off, completely nonplussed.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered sadly, reaching up to place her hand on his cheek, covering the scar she had given him. “I was wrong. I forced myself to believe that because it made things simpler for me. I was selfish. I’m so sorry, Ben. I won’t fail you again.”

He removed his arms from her and rolled onto his back to look at the ceiling, but something had made his vision swim. He blinked rapidly to clear it and only understood when the tears broke free to roll down the sides of his face.

“How, then? I want to be free of the anger. The pain.”

“You expect too much of yourself. To be angry is to be human.” She didn’t whisper anymore; he recognised the calm tone that she used with her Padawans. She paused, propping herself up on her elbow to face him. “Do you think less of me when I’m angry?”

“Of course not,” he answered quickly, and his voice seemed to echo in the silence of the night. “You’re so strong.”

She hummed, stroking her fingers through his hair so that it fanned out on the pillow between them.

“Life, death; warmth, cold; peace, violence. Everything exists in balance. Pleasure wouldn’t exist without pain. I feel so much sadness when I think about Finn because he brought such _enormous_ happiness. There’s a lot of darkness in you, Ben. It’s _deep_ , and sometimes it’s scary, even to me. But it’s answered by the brightest, most beautiful _light_. No, don’t shake your head at me Ben Solo, I’ve _seen_ it. I see it right now; all of it. You can name the darkness ‘Kylo Ren’ if you want, but the words don’t matter. It’s _you_. You’re perfectly balanced. You’re perfect.”

He rolled onto his side and crashed into her, completely inelegantly, but she didn’t seem to mind; she cradled his head to her chest and her fingertips traced the paths of his tears and now she was whispering to him again, and he could barely make out her words over the heaviness of his choked breathing, but they were soft and sweet and eventually they calmed him.

After he had been still for a few moments she tapped his cheek with a finger and added sternly “but, for the record, being angry isn’t a good reason to kill anyone. So feel free to let go of _that_. The rest can stay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is my favourite. Anidala references, check. Grey Jedi references, check. Angst, check. Fluff, check. Subtle nod to to Ben's erection, check. I'm not sorry.


	13. The Force

For three days Rey and Ben hid away from the galaxy at the lake palace. They didn’t keep any kind of schedule, and she knew that he was uncomfortable with her absence of discipline, but he kept his irritation carefully cloaked from her in honour of his newfound respect for her grief.

She talked about Finn, and he listened. He even chimed in once with a memory of his own from Finn’s days as a Stormtrooper. Even back then the boy without a name had been something of a hero.

She allowed herself a few moments each day to think about the war raging on throughout the galaxy. Poe sent her daily digests of the constant flux of systems they saved and lost. The messages were impersonal, and he never asked her for any updates from her end. He seemed to understand, without her saying anything, that she needed to learn how to walk again before she could re-join the fight. Rey couldn’t help but wonder if Poe would ever be able to seek the same respite, or if he was doomed to keep battling forever through his heartache.

The rest of those sun-filled days were spent in blissful ignorance. Ben read to her from his grandmother’s history books. She tried (and failed) to convince him to swim with her in the lake. They left themselves open to wander each other’s minds freely, and she loved the little thrill that ran through him whenever she observed the darknesses within him — always just observing, never judging, never recoiling.

There was only one part of himself that he kept from her. Not hidden, because they had at some point made a wordless promise never to hide; rather he covered it with a shroud that she knew she could easily lift whenever she wished. A part of her knew what was hidden there and shied away from it, but when he kissed her (which he did at every opportunity) she felt drawn inexorably closer. She circled around it warily, and he somehow withdrew from himself to give her room to consider, neither pushing nor pulling. She always decided to leave the shroud untouched, for now. If he was disappointed then he didn’t let it show.

On the fourth day she woke sometime after midday and was shocked to find Ben still asleep beside her. She had had so few opportunities to see him like this; he didn’t seem to need as much sleep as she did. She watched him for a few minutes, feeling deeply content, before moving to the study to review the communication channel. What she found shattered the illusion of peace she had so naively built up around them.

“Rey,” Poe’s holographic figure started. He was in full flight gear. “And… Solo. Rose has discovered the location of the bio lab. I’m sending you the coordinates. We have good reason to believe that the bulk of the virus is still housed there, as well as an antidote. I am launching all squadrons NOW to form a blockade around the planet while an assault team infiltrates the compound. I need you two on the ground. Our ETA is 19 hours; please acknowledge receipt and advise your own.”

The message had been recorded almost two hours ago. She glanced over the coordinates. Although she was still a novice charter she recognised that the target was closer to Naboo than it was to Poe. It would probably take her and Ben about eleven hours of flight time to reach the system. She had time.

She very carefully set aside all of her fears, leaving them in the study. There would be room to examine them later. Slowly she walked back to the bedroom, her breathing steady, her mind reaching out to feel the Force all around her: the warmth of the sun caressing the tops of the trees; the faint breeze carrying the scent of wildflowers down from the mountain range; the soft rippling of the lake as endless life flowed beneath the water’s surface. And brighter than it all, that steady fire that was always with her, that she had once thought of as her hope but which she now realised was simply _Ben_ — as if one meant anything without the other.

She sat on the bed for a moment, looking down at him, before placing her hand on his. His eyes fluttered open and he smothered a yawn with his other hand. She wasn’t sure why the act made her heart flip over in her chest, but she liked the feeling.

“Good afternoon,” he said, both as a greeting and as a gentle reproach for the unorthodox sleep schedule she had forced upon him.

Slowly, deliberately, her fingers reached for the hem of her shirt and she began to lift it up her torso. He understood immediately, because _of course_ he did, and his hands landed on hers to still them.

“We’ll have time,” he said. “Decades. This threat will pass, and on the other side you’ll stand with me. I saw it.”

She leant down to kiss him. Now there was no hesitation, no blushing.

“We’re not leaving this room until I’ve felt every inch of you, Ben Solo.”

Her words ignited something in him and in one swift movement he untangled himself from the sheets and flipped her onto the bed beneath him. He kissed her with the same tenderness she had felt on that first precious morning they shared here, but behind it was something raw and powerful, steadily building. Something that had scared her before. But now she was equal to it.

Her hands tangled into his hair, massaging his scalp as they had during their first kiss, when she had gotten an inadvertent glimpse of his fantasy. And now she finally completed the picture by wrapping her legs around his waist and drawing him in, scarcely able to believe how delicious it felt to have him pressed against her. She rocked up against him experimentally and his entire body shuddered as he returned the friction. She had never felt more powerful, or more vulnerable.

He delved into her consciousness with a reckless enthusiasm that was almost painful and rummaged through her thoughts, clearly searching for something. She felt his frustration when he failed to find it. _Where’s yours? Show me what you want_ , he pleaded, and even inside her mind his breath was ragged with lust. But she didn’t know what she wanted; didn’t even know the options. This was all so new to her. All she knew was that the feeling of his lips against her was beyond anything she could imagine.

He pulled back to look at her, pupils blown wide with undisguised desire, and gave her one more swift kiss before sliding down her body, his hands mimicking her earlier movements and grasping the hem of her shirt. He slid it up slowly, inch by inch, taking each moment to explore the newly exposed skin with his lips and teeth and tongue. When he reached the soft skin beneath her breasts she gasped, and the sound made him break away momentarily to look up at her in awe, before returning to his self-assigned task.

Finally his face found hers again and he reached in to kiss her languidly, but she was growing impatient. She pushed him away to give herself room to grab at his shirt, fumbling in her eagerness, and his eyes sparkled as he grinned down at her. He put her out of her misery by pulling it over his own head, tousling his hair in the process. She had seen him like this once before, though she hadn’t loved him them; hadn’t appreciated the heartbreaking wonder of simply having him next to her. She stroked her fingers across the broad expanses of his skin, sometimes feather-light touches, sometimes clutching at him desperately. His arms, his chest, his back; at one point she hit a sensitive spot just under his arm and he let out a little giggle and squirmed away from her, and in that moment she was positive that she had died from the sheer force of feeling pressing down on her from all sides.

Finally, finally, she felt him move inside of her — as if he had ever been anywhere else? — and for those few glorious moments she felt _everything_. She was Rey, she was Ben, she was the tiny dust motes floating in the air around them as they rocked together, she was the entire galaxy, she was _the very Force itself_ , and so was he.

A lifetime later she felt him gently shake her awake. Without speaking they showered, they dressed, they ate, and they boarded their shuttle. She entered the coordinates that Poe had sent her and settled back into the pilot’s seat, his hand in hers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess I lied yesterday, because THIS is my favourite chapter. The next one is also my favourite. We're almost there!


	14. Bare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shameless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is EXPLICIT and definitely NSFW.
> 
> Admittedly it does absolutely nothing to move the plot forward, so if this isn't your thing then you can quite safely skip this chapter and move on to the next one.

Ben Solo was feeling pretty damn proud of himself.

He had never shown such intense self-restraint. But then nothing had ever tempted him as much as the feeling of Rey’s naked skin pressed against his as she slept curled around him, snoring lightly.

The amount of sheer will that it had taken him to wake her was incredible. And he very quickly had to surpass even that when he coaxed her from their bed into the ‘fresher. The quiet preparations that they made for their departure were absolute torture when all he had wanted to do was touch her, kiss her, bury himself inside her and let the galaxy collapse around them.

He looked over at her from the co-pilot’s seat, eyes roving over her mask of quiet determination, and suddenly found himself burning with restlessness. They needed to get this over and done with so that he and Rey could get back to what was really important. If he had his way they would never leave that lake palace.

But that wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted to be a part of something bigger than him. She wanted to be surrounded by light and laughter, to constantly find new tastes and sensations, to teach her Padawans and watch them grow. What was it she had said? _An entire galaxy of happiness_. He couldn’t fathom the use in any of it when she was the only thing he ever saw clearly.

She must have sensed his unrest because her fingers began tracing light circles on his palm, in a way that used to be soothing but now — now that he was truly alive — stoked the fire inside him until his blood ran as hot and thick as lava.

How did she remain so unaffected?

_I feel it too_ , he heard. She smiled at him with just a hint of shyness and lifted her hand from his grasp to start tapping on the controls.

Heartened by her response he leaned forward to look over the navigational read outs. They were still five hours away from leaving hyperspace. More than enough time. He nudged her elbow with his own, not even needing to verbalise his meaning to her, and she blushed prettily as she nodded.

Suddenly he had her pressed against the wall of the ship’s cramped sleeping quarters. He wasn’t sure where his pants were. He wasn’t sure when she had started touching him — one hand cupping him gently while the other pumped with long firm strokes — but _fuck_ it felt good. He moaned, completely un-self consciously, and was thrilled when she reacted by snaking a hand around his hip to pull his pelvis against hers.

He couldn’t help himself then, and he flung aside the shroud he had used to cover his desire for her and showed her _everything_. Her smell, her taste, her freckles, the soft way she said his name, the warmth between her legs, the crinkles by her eyes when she smiled and the one between her brow when she frowned; he was so fucking desperate for every single part of her. Visions poured out of him of her quivering beneath him, of her looming above him, of her bent over in front of him, of his mouth on her, of her mouth around him, of slow sensuous rocking and mindless desperate thrusting. Images that he had spent _years_ honing to what he had thought was perfection, but now realised were poor-quality shadows of the reality of her.

Even as he began to give in completely to the tide he chastised himself for his loss of control; for flinging on her all of the things he had intended to let her discover in her own time. She felt the self-disapprobation and immediately squashed it, pausing between kisses to tell him that it was okay, that she liked it, that she wanted him too. He moaned again, in a strangled sort of way, as if he were about to weep.

Throughout all of this she had never paused in her attentions to him, somehow able to maintain the steady pace that was driving him quickly to the edge. She released him now so they could make a joint effort to lose the rest of their clothes.

When she was finally bare to him he ran his hands down her sides, eager to even the score by using his fingers on her. But he caught her staring at his lips and was transported back to last night, remembering the way she had thought of them when he had asked her what she wanted. Without a second thought he dropped to his knees in front of her, gently sucking his way up the inside of her thigh and peppering light kisses over her hip bones, knowing that she wanted more but thoroughly enjoying the tease. He lifted one thigh and draped it over his shoulder to get better access, moving his face to the side to lick at the newly exposed pulse point. She let out a long, low moan of frustration, and at that moment he would gladly have ripped his own heart from his chest if she asked him to.

Just when he thought his life couldn’t possibly get any better Rey grabbed a fistful of his hair and pulled his mouth against her. He felt the subtlest shiver of uncertainty as he realised he didn’t quite know what he was doing down here; no matter how many times he had touched himself to the thought of this, his imagination wasn’t quite as detailed as the reality. But Rey was somehow light years ahead of him, and she effortlessly guided him to a spot that made her whimper angelically. She rocked gently twice, testing the new sensation, before dropping all pretence and grinding against his face wantonly. The thought that she had gotten this idea _from him_ , that she was using his fantasy for her own pleasure, was enough to severely threaten his sanity. The roar of his pulse was deafening, but there was something else catching up to it; a steady thrum in the air around them that was building quickly. He realised that it was _her_ , chanting his name over and over with increasing fervour, and a sudden lightheadedness overcame him as all of his blood raced to his already painfully hard cock.

Her mind was his, then, and he felt her mounting frustration as she failed to find the peak. She pulled his face away from her and tugged painfully on his hair to force his eyes up to hers. She looked positively wild, a feral creature born of pure lust, and the sight was so beautiful that his heart ached.

Her voice came in breathy pants. “I can’t, Ben. I need to _feel_ you.”

She released her grip on his hair to press her palms against his chest, forcing him to shift until he was supine beneath her. Ben’s brain short-circuited when he realised he was about to be inside her again — that she _wanted_ him inside her — and for one crazy, terrified moment he wanted to die right here before this feeling could be taken away. Rey was too far gone to notice the change in his mental state. Without preamble she straddled his lap and sunk down onto him, her eyes never leaving his as she began to move up and down along his length.

He broke eye contact first, lowering his gaze to stare shamelessly at her breasts, completely mesmerised by the way they bounced in time with her rhythm. Rey maintained her steady pace for a few delicious moments. He dimly registered the shift in her weight when she lifted one palm from his chest to grip his hand and pull it toward where they were joined.

Her fingertips pressed down upon his, guiding him to rub her in small, firm circles. He happily complied — or rather, he tried to, feeling clumsy as he struggled to maintain a steady pressure against her gyrations. His inexpert groping must have had some degree of success because her movements became frantic and uncoordinated. She gazed down at him with a desperate sort of reverence as she chased the feeling, and a small malicious part of him hoped that she would never find it, so that she would look at him that way forever.

They released identical groans of dismay when he slipped out of her, temporarily ending the spell. They fumbled together for a few seconds, and suddenly he was furiously impatient for both of their sakes. He gripped her waist to hold her steady and fucked up into her, one thumb hooked around her hip to keep up the friction she had asked for. She gladly handed him the reins. She leant back on her hands, exploring a new angle that had him hitting some delicious place inside her that made her gasp with each thrust; the shift meant he could _see_ as he moved in and out of her, and all coherent thought was lost.

* * *

 

They came down together, slowly. Somehow he had ended up on top of her on the narrow bunk. He kissed her sternum before resting his cheek there, pressing his full weight down on her, completely and utterly untroubled. Artlessly he picked up one of her hands and dropped it onto his head. She took his meaning instantly, as he knew she would, and obligingly began to comb his hair with her fingers. He grumbled his wordless appreciation.

“Ben?”

“Mmm?”

“I kinda lost myself there for a while.”

“Mmm.”

“In a _good_ way, I mean.”

“Mmm.”

“I was wrong before, when I said that we’d never be free. _That_ made me feel free.”

“Mmmmm.”

“You were _perfect_.”

His heart skipped a beat and he supposed that was a sign that he needed to give her a more substantial response. Reluctantly he lifted his head, propping himself up on his elbows to rock forward and kiss her chastely. He began to force his consciousness to a state of alertness so he could choose appropriately poignant words… but Rey shook her head slightly and guided him back to her breast, resuming her finger-combing in an attempt to lull him back into relaxation. A very successful attempt.

“You really like this, huh?” It was a statement rather than a question, punctuated by the press of her lips to his crown. Her other hand began to scratch his back with long, light strokes that sent delicious tingles of electricity racing through him.

“I really like _you_ ,” he murmured sluggishly, and sleep took him before he heard her response.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A list of my kinks:  
> 1\. Ben planning out their sex meticulously, imagining every detail over and over again before finally approaching Rey with a concept, all proud like “look what I invented for us”.   
> 2\. Rey rarely thinking about sex apart from when they’re actively doing it, but coming up with stuff in the heat of the moment that completely derails all of Ben’s plans (but he loves it obviously).  
> 3\. Ben losing his mind every single time because he simultaneously wants 100% soft gentle intimacy and 100% mindless animalistic fucking and he Will Not compromise on either of these  
> 4\. Rey’s fingers stroking/gripping/pulling/combing through Ben’s hair  
> 5\. Seriously, the hair thing


	15. Virulence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The rebels infiltrate Hux's laboratory on Drongar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *takes a deep breath* Okay, here we go.

Poe Dameron was furious with himself. He had seen countless battle plans go to complete shit, but not like this. Not from the first moment they entered the perimeter. He had to re-think his entire strategy, _quickly_.

This is why he hated fighting on the ground.

He felt so very tired, but his ire leant him a sudden burst of energy and he launched his useless commlink into the jungle, watching it disappear behind the leaves of a Wookiee-sized shrub.

“Hey!”, the shrub said indignantly.

Poe was too _done_ to care that a flowering plant had taken offence to his actions.

The shrub began to jiggle ominously before the foliage parted to reveal Rey and Ben Solo. Rey was holding the object of his frustration in one hand; the other was rubbing her forehead gently.

Solo surveyed the assembled team with his characteristic disdain. He nodded acknowledgement to Hatchet, who stood tall in full Trooper armour sans helmet. Hatchet responded with a wink. The unexpected display of camaraderie was enough to surprise Poe even in his agitated state.

“It’s nice to know you want to keep in touch, but try _handing_ it to me next time,” Rey said with a smile.

Poe didn’t return her good humour. “The piece of junk wouldn’t do any good even for a social call. Our signals have been jammed. We may as well go and knock on Dwyer’s kriffing door and ask him to please consider letting us in.”

“It’s not a targeted block,” Rose piped up. She was watching her holopad intently as lines of code flew across it. “It’s a broadband EM clamp. Looks like it’s been running for a while; probably since Dwyer set up here. So this doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s expecting us.”

That was something, Poe supposed. The element of surprise was crucial to their success here today.

“Can you get around it?” he dared to hope.

Rose quirked her lips apologetically. “Not with the supplies I have here. Even if I had access to my entire Mon Cala setup it would take me time to get through this; _days_ , maybe.”

Poe growled, snatching the comm back from Rey’s hand so he could fling it again, this time in the opposite direction.

“Poe,” Rey began. “ _POE_ , calm down! There has to be another way. You can’t let one setback derail us after we’ve made it this far.”

He rounded on her.

“ _One_ setback? This _one_ setback is the worst possible thing that could have happened right now! I had a plan. Two teams. One to neutralise the virus and one to secure the antidote. Each objective is completely useless unless the other also succeeds. And how can we possibly achieve both when we have no kriffing way to coordinate our attack?!”

He stared her down, pouring his frustration onto her, daring her to come up with the impossible solution.

Rey was unperturbed.

“Is that it? We can do that without the comms. If all you’re looking for is a way to connect the two teams then we have everything we need.”

* * *

 

_We have everything we need_...

No one else knew what she was suggesting — how could they possibly? — but Ben did, and his vision clouded with red fury.

“ _ **NO**_. Absolutely not.”

Rey ignored him, keeping her gaze carefully trained on Dameron. “Poe, listen: Ben and I can talk to each other without any tech. It’s — a Jedi thing, sort of. I’ll go with you to find the virus, and Ben can go with the other team — with you, I’m guessing, Hatch?”

Dameron’s glare softened and he looked back and forth between them. Ben could practically see the wheels turning behind his eyes.

Ben took hold of Rey’s upper arm to unceremoniously steer her away from the crowd. He turned her to face him without loosening his grip. “It‘s not happening, Rey. We can’t be separated.”

She raised her other hand to stroke the hair at the nape of his neck. A part of him wanted to give in, wanted to do anything she asked; but what she was suggesting was too close to betrayal, so he stood his ground.

So did she. “We _won’t_ be separated. Not really. Not _ever_.”

He covered her hand with his to stop the distraction of her fingers. “Oh, how very wonderful. I’ll be with you in the Force, able to experience every moment of your danger for myself, completely unable to shield you from it.”

“I can take care of myself,” she said firmly, “just as well as you can. This is so important, Ben. _No_ ,” — she cut off his protest — “not _more_ important than us, but _important_.”

Rey paused for a moment, then changed tactic, smiling slyly. “This is what brought us back together, you know. If it weren’t for this threat then you would have spent the next sixty years sitting alone on your big ship, too shy to tell me you how very much you liked me.” Then she stood up on tiptoe to place her lips against his ear. She whispered to him, and the blood rushed from his head.

Ben‘s nostrils flared. He was very aware of the platoon of Troopers standing just out of earshot.

She pulled back and smiled up at him sweetly, apparently completely unfazed by the blaze she had ignited between them. It quickly dimmed to a steady burn as he looked down at her, touched as always by how impossibly strong and beautiful she was.

He swallowed his fears and took her hands in his, pressing all of them together against his chest.

“Rey, I —“ he stopped himself, because what was the point? It wasn’t enough. Nothing he could say would ever be enough.

Her smile never wavered. “I know. And so do you. Remember what we saw.” She traced his fingers with hers, a reminder of the moment that began all of this, and he blinked rapidly to soothe the burning behind his eyelids.

A throat cleared somewhere behind him, utterly insignificant. But it must have meant something to her because she gently untangled from him and moved them both toward it. She gave his hand one last precious squeeze and then let go, still moving, taking half the crowd and all his hope with her.

* * *

 

“Have they reached it?” Poe whispered.

Rey’s eyes unfocused and her voice took on a monotonous quality, as if she were reciting from a book. “It’s a dead end. Just the door. The room behind is _big_ , so there must be another way out. It’s no use forcing our way in until the exit is secure. I have two men scouting; until then we hold our position.”

Poe nodded, and so did Rey, and then she nodded again, and Poe nodded his acknowledgement of Rey’s transmission of Solo’s nod that in fact signified Hatchet’s nod.

“No more nodding,” he snapped. Rey grinned, then paused, then grinned again. Poe warred with the temptation to walk out on the lot of them.

He couldn’t wholly begrudge them their optimism. It was a miracle that they had made it to this point undetected, but Poe knew that they needed several more miracles before they were out of the woods. There was no room for error now. Dwyer was a nutcase, by all reports, and there was no accounting for what he would do when he was cornered. Poe didn’t put it past him to have some sort of contingency plan to cause the virus’ release even if he were incapacitated.

They continued their course, creeping toward the place Rose had promised them housed the virus stores.

“Do you love him?” Poe asked at length, feeling like an idiot for wondering about it _now_ , but unable to ignore his curiosity any longer. One of his men caught his eye, raising an eyebrow questioningly.

“Yes.” Rey replied without hesitation, surprising him. Her expression didn’t change; calmly determined as she held up a hand to them, using her Jedi senses to scout around a corner. After a moment she allowed them to proceed.

“Does he love you?”

“Yes.” She smiled now.

“Is that why you left?”

“No.”

“Oh. Good.”

Finally they reached their destination.

* * *

 

Several long minutes passed in silence.

“So I take it things are good between you and Rey,” Hatchet said.

Ben stared at him.

Hatchet shrugged. “Just making conversation.”

Ben flicked his eyes pointedly around the crowd of Troopers surrounding them.

“Oh, I’m sorry. It didn’t occur to me that you were trying to be subtle about it, what with that display in the jungle, and the telepathy, and all.” Hatchet’s tone was so good-natured that Ben couldn’t continue being irritated with him.

“Things are good,” he admitted, and only the tiniest part of him missed being Supreme Leader and having these men be afraid of him.

He felt her flicker against him. _We’re ready_.

The door beside him hissed.

_So are we_.

* * *

 

Rey nodded to Poe and he turned to the touchpad beside the door, typing in the code that Rose had provided for them. The door opened.

_Too easy_ , thought Rey.

They moved through into a room which looked less like a laboratory and more like a factory. The ceiling disappeared into a black void above them. Stretched out ahead of them was a pathway lined by steel cylinders at least twelve feet high. On either side were massive conveyor belts, every few feet manned by a droid. This was obviously where the virus had been manufactured. But the belts were empty, and the droids were shut down. The room was frighteningly quiet.

Poe beckoned them to move quickly down the pathway to a door at the other end. It opened automatically at their approach.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” someone said. Maybe it was her.

They moved through to the next room — Poe on point, Rey close behind him, the rest trailing as best they could in an arrow formation, bottlenecking slightly at the doorway.

They entered a room of shelves. Dozens and dozens of them, stretching up to the invisible ceiling, and moving off to either side in seemingly endless rows.

All of them empty.

They were too late.

The door clicked shut behind them, and Rey whirled half a beat before the rest of her team. They were still alone.

A voice crackled through a speaker above the door.

“My virus is being deployed to every system in the galaxy. Soon we will all be free of the shackles of our baser selves, and the galaxy will be ruled by _truth_. But although I am a man of science, I must let nature have one last victory; after all, she gave me this beautiful tool to warp and wield.”

A hole appeared in the wall, the size of Rey’s pinky finger, and something flew out of it towards Poe. She lunged for him automatically, pushing him aside, and the offending object hit her instead, lodging itself into her upper arm. It was some sort of dart. She ripped it from her instantly, but not before feeling a warm flush race through her body. It wasn’t at all like the flush she felt when Ben looked at her. It felt toxic.

Something crashed behind her, and the shelves began to fall against each other like a line of dominoes. Poe grabbed her and the team of rebels moved as one toward the door. Rey ignited her lightsaber, slashing at the control panel to force the door open.

The manufacturing room was on fire. One by one the droids lining the walls imploded in a shower of sparks. The team raced down the corridor, and the large cylinders lining it began to collapse as they passed. Rey felt her feet become fuzzy, and then numb completely, but she forced her hips and knees to compensate so she could keep moving. The static feeling began to ascend up her legs. When they were twenty feet from the door an enormous explosion wracked them, and the voices of the rebels behind her cried out.

* * *

 

The door opened and they stepped inside to greet their successful teammates.

The room they were standing in was in fact big, and looked as if it were once a storage area. Cupboards and drawers of varying sizes lined the walls. In the middle was a circular table with several terminals; all of them shut down.

“This exit leads to a hatch in the jungle, sirs,” a Trooper reported, indicating a small door on the opposite wall. “No doubt it was planned as an escape route.”

“Well done, boys,” Hatchet said.

“There’s more, sirs. The First Order — that is, Hux’s Order — have broken through our — that is, the Resistance’s — barricade, and are making planetfall as we speak.”

Right on cue, an explosion was heard from somewhere overhead, and the light fixtures trembled.

Without further discussion they all separated to begin scouring the room. Ben felt drawn to the western wall and opened a drawer, seemingly at random. It hissed as he pulled it open, and a fog of dry ice escaped. It was a refrigerator. Inside were four black vials the size of his thumb. They were unlabelled, but Ben knew that this was what they had come for. He alerted his team.

Hatchet clapped him on the back when he saw the precious discovery. “Great, let’s get out of here.”

“No,” Ben said. “This isn’t enough. It will take time to reverse-engineer this so we can make more. There must be a — recipe, formula — something.”

One of the Troopers understood immediately, heading to the terminals in the center of the room and switching them on one by one. Ben made a mental note to learn the man’s name when all this was over. Ben, Hatchet, and three Troopers each chose a seat and got to work. Ben couldn’t help but think how ridiculous it was that they were _sitting down_ and looking through files when so much was at stake.

Several long minutes later Hatchet gave a cry of success as he located the necessary file. He pulled a disc from his belt and inserted it into the terminal.

Another faint explosion from overhead.

“You all go ahead and secure the exit,” Hatchet suggested. “Then head to support our ground troops. I will await the download and lead Dameron’s team out.”

The Troopers complied immediately, but Ben moved to Hatchet’s side and gripped his shoulder. “No, I’ll stay.”

Hatchet looked unconvinced. Ben tapped the lightsaber at his hip pointedly.

“If a single person is staying then it needs to be the one most equipped for single combat. You need to be out there commanding a squad.” He paused. “And I’m not leaving without Rey.”

Hatchet grinned. “Fair point. See you on the other side, brother.” He gave Ben an informal salute and then gestured to his men. They filed quickly from the room.

* * *

 

The explosion hit Poe with full force, knocking him back into one of the massive cylinders which in turn crumpled under the power of the blast. His pilot’s reflexes allowed him to roll out from under the falling weight, but he wasn’t quite fast enough, and the huge metal beam came down on his head with a sickening _crack_ before rolling to crush his right arm, pinning him in place.

_Poe_! Rey tried to scream, but her breath had left her and she barely croaked. She lunged toward him but her feet were empty and now her knees were fading too, so she face-planted helplessly before him. She had just enough reach to take his limp hand in hers.

* * *

 

Ben tapped his foot impatiently as the data downloaded. Finally the transmission was complete and he tucked the disc into his belt along with the small case containing the four vials of antidote.

His satisfaction was short-lived. An explosion rocked his body to the side and he automatically reached for his lightsaber, igniting it as he whirled around to face the new threat. The room was empty and untouched.

Panic raced through him as he realised that the danger was Rey’s rather than his own. His consciousness soared towards her like an arrow, finding its target unerringly.

Her words were infused with an eerie calm. _Dwyer escaped. Poe’s trapped. I’m infected_.

_It’s alright_ , he reassured, almost believing himself. _I have the antidote. I’m coming_.

He ignored the door Hatchet had used and turned back the way they had come, moving quickly along the long corridor. Slowly his vision started to cloud with smoke and his ears picked up the wailing of sirens coming from what he assumed was the laboratory. He was almost thankful for the assaults on his senses; a small price to pay if they lead him to her.

* * *

 

She felt Ben inside her, trying to use her memories to navigate his way through the compound toward her, but the walls of the laboratory were crumpling under the pressure of the heat, and she knew he would be too late.

_I’ll die_ , Rey realised, with an odd sort of clinical detachment. Somehow it seemed like a fitting end.

She wondered how these last moments had been for Finn. No doubt he had been brave and faced the horrible truth head-on. She would honour him by doing the same.

She saw his dear face and raged for the millionth time about how _unfair_ it was that he had died while so many others had lived. But this time the thought tasted different, and as soon as it crossed her mind she realised that he wouldn’t have seen it that way.

How many Twi’lek men and women and children on Ryloth were now succumbing to the virus, losing the parts of them that made them alive and unique? And if what Dwyer had said was true then beings in _every_ system were now at risk. What was her life, or Finn’s, or even Ben’s, compared to all of them? Didn’t every single one of them deserve to find love and happiness  
? She thought of the first time Finn had reached for her hand; of Leia embracing her even though they had never met; of Chewie offering her the pilot’s seat of the ship he had spent decades flying; of Poe forcing himself to laugh like a little kid until she was compelled to do the same. She thought of Elio and Bridget and Ka’jan, and the way they _trusted_ her to watch over them and keep them safe.

Inevitably, heartbreakingly, she thought of Ben and the way that he had smiled up at her as they lay entwined together on Naboo, and how important it had been. She knew that if she died he would never smile like that again. But _billions_ of others would get the chance to hold their lovers close and tell them that they’re not alone. Maybe it wouldn’t be the same as it had been for her and Ben, but it would be perfect and beautiful for every single one of them. Were they worth it?

* * *

 

_Turn around_ , Ben heard her say. _I can’t come. My legs don’t work_.

He delved deeper inside her than he ever knew possible, unboxing every single piece of her, looking for what had been broken so he could begin to fix it. When he saw the truth — that she had resigned herself to this fate — he raged, and she shoved him away from her mind so strongly that his body staggered.

_Stop! You’re wasting time! You have to go back to Rose._

_I won’t leave you, Rey_. Was she insane?

_Ben **please**! Please do this for me! I can’t let it all have been for nothing. You need to go, please, you need to go, please, you need to._

He didn’t know if the words were repeating because she was chanting them or because his mind was cannibalising itself trying to make sense of them.

Her panic finally broke through, and the wave of furious hopelessness she radiated was enough to make him flinch.

_I’ve never asked you for a single damn thing, Ben Solo; you **will** do this for me!_

His eyes burned from the acrid smoke which continued to pour into the corridor, now so thick it was practically solidifying, and if it weren’t for the constant vibrations of the Force he would have been completely blind.

He had no choice. He loved her, but she loved _everything_ , and he had sworn to himself that he would give it to her.

_I’ll come back for you, sweetheart, I promise_.

He turned from her and ran for the exit. Not trusting himself to think he turned over his being to pure instinct — but his instinct was to reach out for her, because what else did he have? His desperate grappling for her only intensified as the distance between them grew steadily wider, and he could actually feel his bones being ripped apart at the seams.

She did him the cruellest mercy of closing the door between them, causing him to rebound painfully back into himself. Just like she did on Crait. And then again on Naared Alpha. She closed the door that he would never ever be strong enough to close, would never wish closed because he never wanted to be parted from her, so _why_ was she always so ready to slam it, why wasn’t he ever enough, not even at this moment when he was giving up everything for this idiotic whim of hers; and then his entire face was burning as hot liquid splashed down from somewhere above him, but he kept running, because she had asked it of him.

* * *

 

Rose stared at Ben with disbelief, batting away the case he held out to her, as if it were nothing.

“Where’s Poe? Where’s Rey? We _need_ to save them!” Rose raised a blaster from the holster on her waist and barrelled, completely without hesitation, in the direction of the lab. Ben decided that he very much wanted this small woman to live.

Suddenly the earth lurched from under them with such force that he had the ridiculous mental image of the planet being cracked open like an egg. An orange behemoth rose from the ground where the lab had been hidden, _where Rey had been_ , punching toward the sky. Then a wave of heat hit them with enough power to singe hair, eyebrows, lips. Rose gagged on her own scream.

The entire galaxy froze, and a small part of him was glad that it was finally all over, but his relief was short-lived because in the next moment his treacherous heart began to beat again, signalling the continuation of his wretched existence. Without her. Silently, insidiously, his mind began to catalogue all of the many paths stretched out before him, each one of them leading him back to her, because any other outcome was unacceptable, and the only thing that helped him control the urge to ignite his lightsaber was his certainty that she would _hate_ him for doing so.

Then he felt her. Not in the burning ruins of the laboratory compound, but somewhere to the west of it, safe in the jungle. She was still alive; still with him. Her pull was so strong and so sweet that his hand reached out of its own accord, as if to lead the way.

He grabbed Rose by the arm and dragged her with him toward the oasis. She scrambled to keep up, but the effort was mostly unnecessary; Ben was moving with such purposeful speed that she practically floated behind him like a kite.

He saw her, an eternity later, carelessly flung to the ground next to a patch of angry-looking thistles. Dameron was prostrate next to her, staring with morbid fascination at a red, leaking stump on the end of his arm. Rose ran to him while ripping the tie from her hair to fashion a tourniquet.

Ben paid them no mind, utterly transfixed by Rey. She was bruised and battered but looked otherwise alright — apart from the fact that she wasn’t moving. Her breath came in sporadic, shallow gasps which weren’t enough to sustain her, as evidenced by the blue tinge to her lips and fingers.

She had opened the door and used all of her strength to call him to her; the very last of her strength, because now he couldn’t feel her at all. He _saw_ her, laying right there in front of him: that was her body, he knew it better now than he knew his own. But the door was wide open and still he couldn’t feel her.

He had never felt so alone, and the thought was so potent that he couldn’t help verbalising it.

No one answered him.


	16. Purgatory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben has some visitors.

He waited for a very long time.

He didn’t remember the journey to Mon Cala. He found out later that Rose had pried Rey’s body from his arms to give her a dose of the antidote he had risked so much for. Dameron explained, as best he was able, that the virus Rey was succumbing to was a different, more ancient strain than the one that the antidote had been developed for. No one was sure if it would work.

People streamed in and out consistently to sit with her and talk to her awkwardly. Ben hated the interruptions, but he knew that Rey had affection for these people, so he allowed it. Some he recognised, like Dameron, who seemed like he truly didn’t want to be there. The second time he visited he admitted — not really to Ben, but to the room at large — that he didn’t know what to say. Ben obliged him for Rey’s sake, and suggested that she would perhaps like to hear something about Finn. Dameron’s face crumpled and he sat down heavily enough to cause the chair to creak ominously, resting his mechanical hand on Rey’s pillow.

Ben decided this would be a good time to finally take stock of the rest of the room and he moved to the opposite wall, fingering the medical equipment disinterestedly. When his back was turned he heard the pilot’s voice begin to speak to Rey in low, soothing tones. At one point Dameron laughed at his own joke, like a moron, but Ben stopped himself from rolling his eyes. _She’ll like that_. He endured five torturous minutes before returning to her. It was the only time he ever left her bedside.

Poe always made a point to engage him in conversation after that. There were worse fates, he supposed, though he didn’t much care for the particulars of Hux’s arrest or the dismemberment of the Empire.

Hatchet came once, Rose twice, and the Padawans came every day. The younger two were wary of him at first, but Elio flashed him a knowing smile, and Ben wondered how much the boy had sensed in the years he had spent with Rey on Ahch-To.

The medics appeared every four hours to confirm the data they were being fed by the medi-droids. There was nothing for them to do; her condition never changed. They would always flap around her for a few moments anyway, trying to make themselves look useful. Sometimes a throat would be cleared pointedly as they reached around him to tend to her, but if they thought that he had any intention of moving then they were even more worthless than he had presumed.

At times he would see some of the attendants trying to catch his eye, or sending him small smiles of encouragement, and he got the distinct impression that they approved of his constant presence at her side. He heard two young women sigh to each other as the door closed behind them and realised that they probably thought he was being romantic, but they didn’t have a fucking clue. The truth was that his refusal to leave her was because it was vitally important for his face to be the very first thing she saw when she woke up. She needed to know — _he needed_ her to know exactly how completely he had fallen apart when she asked him to choose it all over her. He needed her to know how badly she had miscalculated, so she would _finally_ understand. So she knew that she truly was _everything_. So she knew that although she had been so, so wrong, he had still obeyed her wishes even though he knew that they were the two biggest idiots in the galaxy for trusting so blindly in each other. So she could roll her eyes and laugh at him and stroke his hair and pull his lips down to hers and try to help him fit it all back together. That’s all he was there for. There was nothing ‘romantic’ about it.

His determination wavered only when he felt _Her_ coming. She had kept away for weeks while others came and went — thought Herself to be busy with ‘more important’ things, most likely — but now She came, and he took a few moments to withdraw from Rey so he could armour himself.

The General spoke. “How is she?” She kept her tone deliberately even and impersonal, but Kylo Ren knew what this woman was and so he wouldn’t let his guard down.

He answered only because he thought it was the quickest way to get rid of Her. “I’m sure You know exactly how she is. I’m sure everything that happens in this room is reported directly to You.” _I know what You are, I know what You want, You’re wasting Your time_.

Not one to be vanquished so easily, the General changed tactics like the expert warrior he knew Her to be.

“No doubt you have heard that we’ve assembled an emergency parliament. There isn’t yet room to represent all systems, of course. In the coming months and years we will need—“

“I don’t care,” he interrupted, finality in his voice. “I’m only here for Rey. Once her fate is known, one way or the other, I’ll be gone, and You’ll be free to play Your little games without me complicating them.”

He heard Her suck in a deep breath as if to calm Herself. For a wild moment he thought She would try to persuade him to stay and help Her rebuild Her precious Republic from the ashes of the Empire that had been ripped from him. But he was wrong, as always. She had made Her plans and there was no room for him within them.

“And what of your men? And Hux’s?”

Ben shrugged, feeling utterly drained. “I have no use for them. I’m sure you do.” She always found a use for people.

There was a long beat of silence. She seemed to be waiting for something that he wasn’t willing to give Her.

He heard Her move to leave the room, and for a moment he felt relief, but She tore that from him mercilessly when She paused at the door.

“I’m happy for you... so happy you’ve found someone to love. That’s a mother’s greatest hope for her child.”

Ben burned. How could She presume to know how he felt? She wasn’t capable of understanding; the very fact that that She was standing here proved it. She had claimed to love Han Solo, but Ben had murdered him in cold blood, and yet here She stood before the monster: looking at him, speaking to him, showing him kindness, of all things. How could She possibly bear it? She didn’t know _anything_ about love.

Tears threatened his vision and he was impossibly grateful that his face was turned so that She couldn’t see them.

His mother sounded very young when She spoke again. “Goodbye, Ben.”

He felt the desperate, ridiculous need to _give_ Her something, even now, when they had both taken so much from each other.

“May the Force be with you, Leia.” His voice cracked around Her name, bringing him dangerously close to ripping this entire wretched planet apart with his bare hands.

The first tear fell as the door hissed shut behind Her, and then the rest followed, a detestable deluge that made his chest heave. He looked down at Rey’s body stretched out on the bed before him, and for an infinitesimal second the smallest part of him hated her for failing to come to him at this moment. It passed like a fleeting shadow, and he was left with pure grief. He bent his head to kiss the back of her hand and then rested his cheek there, trying and failing to control the harsh breaths that made his entire body shudder.

He felt her flicker quietly inside him — a hummingbird beating her gossamer wings desperately against his raging hurricane — and he waited.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Ben/Leia interaction was the hardest part of this entire fic for me to write, because I desperately wanted it to go another way, but I just don't think that they can be One Big Happy Family. Yet.


	17. Epilogue

Leia was nervous. It was a strange new feeling for her. She smiled in spite of herself, pleased to know that even after all her long years there were still surprises in store for her.

Her life had certainly been full of surprises this last week. She remembered exiting the senate chamber feeling hopeful after a particularly taxing session. Her comm chirped and she answered without hesitation, expecting to see Poe’s impatient face awaiting her update. When the holopad display rearranged itself to represent Rey’s form Leia’s shock had been matched only by her elation. This young woman was a few years older than the Rey that lived in Leia’s memory. The lines of her face had become subtly sharper even as the rest of her silhouette had softened. Rey had displayed her own nervousness then, but her characteristic determination outshone it as she promised that things would turn out for the best.

Leia put her memories away to better enjoy the scenery unfolding around her as she made planetfall. The lush green of the mountains was as stunning as ever: illuminated from above by the clear sky, and also from below as the sunlight reflected off the crystal surface of the lake.

She hadn’t seen this place for decades, but a part of it lived inside her. As she looked out toward the water she saw a vision of herself when she was young and carefree, sitting with her feet dangling in the water while Han splashed through the shallows in chase of their young son. She squashed the painful memory with the hope that she would soon be making sweet new ones.

Leia paused to collect herself before finally opening the door, releasing the airlock to let in the fresh scent of Naboo. In those few moments Rey had appeared from the palace and was moving to greet the ship, her curves seeming even more prominent than they had during the holographic call nine days ago. She walked with an awkward briskness, as though she were desperate to run, but was unable to quite manage it in her current state.

“Leia,” she breathed when they were finally face to face. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

“Me too.” Leia glanced down. “May I?”

Rey nodded, smiling. Leia placed a hand on the rounded belly between them, paused for a moment, and frowned exaggeratedly when she felt nothing.

Rey laughed at the disappointed look on her face. “Maybe later. He’s a bit of a night owl.”  
“He?”

“That’s what I think. Ben disagrees, as always.” Her smile flickered as she awaited Leia’s response.

Leia Organa-Solo took a deep, calming breath. “Is he inside?”

Rey smiled again, a bit ruefully this time. “He is. I won’t lie to you, Leia, this is going to be awkward for all three of us. But this isn’t about the three of us anymore. I want — I _need_ my child to have this family. And I know Ben does too, even if he’s too much of a stubborn brat to admit it.”

Leia took her arm then, linking them together.

“Don’t worry. I wouldn’t miss being part of this for _anything_.”

As they made their way inside Leia took the opportunity to spend a glorious moment appreciating the Force flowing around herself, around Rey, around the precious new life growing inside of her. Her awareness spiralled out and she felt her son; felt how the deep contentment within him far outshone the light layer of anxiety he bore in response to her approach.

She felt the faint echo of her brother that followed her everywhere, and she felt the quiet space next to her that she always reserved for her husband — the only true void that existed in her universe. They were at peace, and soon she would be too, but first she had one more thing to fight for.

She had learned too many times that the fight for peace was interminable, that victory was an illusion, and that each battle was harder fought than the last. There was never any guarantee that she would be equal to the next challenge thrown in her path. All Leia could do was hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We made it! You guys didn’t really think I was going to kill Rey, did you?
> 
> I realise I kinda skipped ahead here to the happy ending, but Rey, Ben, and the galaxy all have a LOT of healing to do and it’s a little beyond the scope of this fic. I’ll definitely be posting some long-ish one-shots detailing events between Purgatory and the Epilogue, but for now I need a little break from this ‘universe’ to work on the next thing.
> 
> Thank you so, so much to everyone who has read, or left kudos, or commented, or sent me messages. I love you all. This was my first Star Wars fic and probably the longest fic I have ever completed so I’m so glad there are people out there who like it. As of right now there are *80* people subscribed to this fic and that might not be much compared to some of the big name authors in this fandom but to me it’s massive!
> 
> Feel free to find me on Tumblr (same username) if you ever want to talk about this story, or the one I’m writing now (it’s very Knights of Ren-centric -- you probably noticed their conspicuous absence), or anything else Star Wars related, or what you had for lunch today. Constructive criticism is also very welcome.
> 
> <3 DP


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